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The Four-Part Structure of Bilbo's Education

1980; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 8; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/chl.0.0634

1543-3374

William H. Green,

Diverse Education Studies and Reforms

The Four-Part Structure of Bilbo's Education William H. Green (bio) The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien's fantastic quest-tale, traces the maturation of a timid hobbit named Bilbo after he reluctantly joins a company of dwarves on an expedition to take a dragon's gold. Bilbo, described in the beginning as a "little fellow bobbing and puffing on the mat," looks "more like a grocer than a burglar."1 But he later steals a cup from the dragon and a gem from the leader of the dwarves and discovers an unarmored spot beneath the dragon's left shoulder. Though Bilbo is half a century old, his hobbit stature and innocence suggest childhood, and he matures like Perceval through a series of hardships and tests. At first a sheltered innocent, he becomes a proven hero—an adventurer uncowed by dragons and uncorrupted by gold. The story of Bilbo's education has four parts: first, the departure from the Shire, second, the adventures in the Misty Mountains, third, the adventures in Mirkwood, and fourth, the adventures at the Lonely Mountain. Though they are links in the chain of a single, coherent story, the four parts are clearly divided from each other. Structurally similar, they each begin with a well-equipped journey into the wilderness and move through want, danger, captivity, and unlikely escape to a hospitable house where the expedition rests and obtains new supplies. The four subtales are four turns in the spiral which is the hobbit's education. Bilbo's double nature—what he is at first and what he later becomes—is suggested, by a likely derivation of his name, a compound of two Middle English words suggesting his initial immaturity and subsequent heroism. Bil-boie, "sword-boy," is a suitable name for the hobbit because a sword is central to his development. A small sword from the trolls' cave is his reward for his first heroic effort. With this sword he resists Gollum and the spiders and, ultimately, assumes leadership over the dwarves. With the sword Bilbo grows from a boy in deeds as well as size to a knight "more worthy to wear [End Page 133] the armor of elf-princes than many that have looked more comely in it" (p. 258). The boylike hobbit becomes a military hero. Though it may be accidental that the days of the meeting with Gandalf, of tea with the dwarves, and of the departure for Wilderland—the three days which begin Bilbo's adventure—are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the three days which are named after Norse gods of war, it is difficult to believe that anything Tolkien does is accidental when it involves Germanic philology. The name Bilbo is foolishly hobbitlike on the surface, but underneath there are intimations of the military hero or the knight.2 The Hobbit is cyclical, beginning and ending with an unexpected visit from Gandalf. Emphasizing this cyclical structure is Bilbo's tentative title for his memoirs—the pseudo-historical source of The Hobbit—which he plans to call "There and Back Again, A Hobbit's Holiday" (p. 385). Gandalf and the dwarves initiate the action, and the action ends with a visit from the wizard and a dwarf. Bilbo is smoking "an enormous long wooden pipe" at the beginning when Gandalf appears (p. 17), and at the end Bilbo laughs and hands Gandalf a tobacco jar (p. 287). Again, the cycle is not a simple return-it is a spiral. Bilbo's adventure has been productive, for his waistcoat is "more extensive" and has "real gold buttons," and the dwarf has a longer beard and a magnificent jeweled belt. The good people around the mountain, we are told, have prospered (p. 286), and Bilbo has become cosmopolitan, at least in the eyes of his provincial neighbors. He has "lost his reputation" and taken to "writing poetry and visiting the elves" (p. 285). The final scene of The Hobbit is a positive echo of its beginning. But the beginning of the story is also echoed, however negatively, by the climactic events at the dragon's lair in the Lonely Mountain. In opposition to the hobbit smoking at the door of his...