J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a publishing phenomenon.
Since its initial publication almost 60 years ago, it is estimated to have registered sales in excess of 150 million copies.
In a poll organized jointly by Waterstones and BBC Channel 4 in 1996, The Lord of the Rings topped the poll in 104 of the 105 branches of the British bookstore, receiving 20% more votes than George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, its nearest rival. Perhaps its ultimate triumph in the age of the Internet was its being voted best book of the millennium by Amazon.com customers, signaling its conquest of the final frontier of cyberspace.
In the wake of the book’s phenomenal success, Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings trilogy became one of the most successful films of all time.
Few would predict anything other than another huge success for Jackson and his team with the Dec. 14 release of the first part of the long-awaited three-part adaptation of The Hobbit.
At its deepest level of meaning, The Hobbit is a pilgrimage of grace in which its protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, becomes grown-up in the most important sense. Throughout the course of his adventure, the hobbit develops the habit of virtue and grows in sanctity, illustrating the priceless truth that we only become wise men (homo sapiens) when we realize that we are pilgrims on a purposeful journey through life (homo viator).
Bilbo’s journey from the homely comfort of the Shire to the uncomfortable lessons learned en route to the Lonely Mountain, in parallel with Frodo’s journey from the Shire to Mount Doom in the Rings trilogy, is a mirror of every man’s journey through life. It is in this sense that Tolkien wrote in his celebrated and cerebral essay "On Fairy Stories" that "the fairy story … may be used as a mirour de l’omme" (the mirror of scorn and pity towards man).
In short, we are meant to see ourselves reflected in the character of Bilbo and our lives reflected in his journey from the Shire to the Lonely Mountain.
Indeed, and perhaps surprisingly, Bilbo bears a remarkable resemblance to many of us, his diminutive size and furry feet notwithstanding. He likes tea and toast and jam and pickles; he has wardrobes full of clothes and lots of pantries full of food; he likes the view from his own window and has little desire to see the view from distant windows. He is a creature of comfort dedicated to the creature comforts.
In Christian terms, Bilbo Baggins is dedicated to the easy life and would find the prospect of taking up his cross and following the heroic path of self-sacrifice utterly anathema.
The unexpected party at the beginning of the story, in which the hobbit’s daily habits are disrupted by the arrival of unexpected and unwelcome guests, is, therefore, a necessary disruption. It is the intervention into his cozy life of an element of inconvenience or suffering, which serves as a wake-up call and a call to action.
In losing his bourgeois respectability — the price he must pay for becoming an adventurer — he forsakes the world and the worldly in favor of the pearl of great price.
Another key component of The Hobbit, which it shares with The Lord of the Rings, is the presence of the invisible hand of Providence or grace. This presence, euphemistically labeled "luck" in the story, is not really "luck" at all.
"You don’t really suppose, do you," Gandalf tells Bilbo, "that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?"
Contrary to the claims of Nietzsche, Hitler and other secular "progressives," there is no triumph of the will without the supernatural assistance of grace. This is the whole point of Frodo’s failure to destroy the One Ring of his own volition in The Lord of the Rings. Human will, on its own, is never enough. Grace is always necessary.
In The Hobbit, as in The Lord of the Rings, good "luck" is inextricably connected to good choices, and bad "luck" is inextricably connected to bad choices. With regard to the latter, we should recall the words of Gandalf to Pippin: "Often does hatred hurt itself" — or the words of Theoden that "oft evil will shall evil mar."
Thus, there is a supernatural dimension to the unfolding of events in Middle-earth, in which Tolkien shows the mystical balance that exists between the promptings of grace or of demonic temptation and the response of the will to such promptings and temptations. This mystical relationship plays itself out in the form of transcendent Providence, which is much more than "luck" or chance.
For a Christian, this is life as it is. It is realism.
A Christian believes in dragons, even if he can’t see them, and knows that they are perilous and potentially deadly. They are certainly not to be courted, nor is it wise to toy with them.
"The more truly we can see life as a fairy tale," said G.K. Chesterton, "the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the dragon who is wasting fairyland."
Grace is always available to those who seek it and ask for it, biasing "fortune" in the direction of goodness; yet, on the other hand, the fallen nature of humanity means that man’s natural tendency is towards concupiscence and its destructive consequences. If we don’t ask for help, we are bound to fall.
It is in this choice, rooted in the gift and responsibility of free will, that the struggle with evil is won or lost. The will must willingly cooperate with grace or, in its failure to do so, must inevitably fall into evil. The struggle which all of us face is a dangerous adventure in a perilous realm.
If the interplay of Providence and free will is the means by which the dynamism of virtue and its consequences drive the narrative forward, the overarching moral of The Hobbit would appear to be a cautionary meditation on Matthew 6:21 ("Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also").
The story begins with Bilbo’s desire for comfort and his unwillingness to sacrifice himself for others. His heart is essentially self-centered, surrounding itself with the treasures of his own home. His position at the outset of the story is an ironic and symbolic prefiguring of the dragon’s surrounding himself with treasure in his "home" in the Lonely Mountain.
Bilbo is, therefore, afflicted with the dragon sickness. His pilgrimage to the Lonely Mountain is the means by which he will be cured of this materialist malady. It is a via dolorosa, a path of suffering, the following of which will heal him of his self-centeredness and teach him to give himself self-sacrificially to others.
The paradoxical consequence of the dragon sickness is that the things possessed possess the possessor. Thus Bilbo is a slave to his possessions at the beginning of The Hobbit and is liberated from them, or from his addiction to them, by its end.
When Gandalf proclaims at the story’s end that Bilbo is no longer the hobbit that he was, we know that he is changed for the better. He no longer places his heart at the service of his worldly possessions, but seeks instead those treasures of the heart to be found in wisdom and virtue. He is healed, and he is whole — or, as Tolkien the Catholic might say, he is whole because he is holy. The hobbit had attained the habit of virtue, and, as befits the hero of any good fairy story, he now knows what is necessary to live happily ever after.
Joseph Pearce, writer in residence at Thomas More College in New Hampshire, is the author of
Tolkien: Man & Myth and editor of Tolkien: A Celebration.
His latest book is Bilbo’s Pilgrimage: The Christianity of The Hobbit (Saint Benedict’s Press).
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a wonderful, astute look at this book by the ever-impressive Mr. Pearce. Thanks for the great read!
Very insightful! Thanks for this article.
I understand that Mr. Jackson’s version of The Hobbit as initially released, lasts nearly three hours. Some of us oldsters will have to wait for the release of the DVD version a/c inability to sit in a theater seat for that length of time.
TeaPot562
What a bunch of nonsense. Good and evil and free will and providence?? These are universal themes and are not the monopoly of Christianity.
The author is a pile of you-know-what. Is this the same Joseph Pearce who was a rabid racist and spent time in prison in England?? Oh, but he is a good boy now? Me, as an atheist and a veteran of the Afghan conflict am not a racist, have not spent time in prison and have no need for religion. No soul, no god, no bouncing baby virgin birth Jesus. What a joke!
Thank you Professor Pearce. As a young kid in the early 70’s the Hobbit was an inportant part of my understanding of virtue, grace , the hand of the Almighty. I remember when I first saw the ‘foreign’ languege of the elves, etc in Tolkien’s books I thought it was latin!!! The popularity of these books is not random luck, Tolkien’s faith is written all over ‘em.
I have had two periods or segments of my life that contained enough idle time to ‘surf’ the WWW: in 1996-1998 and after 2007. In the last four years give or take a month I have noticed that there is always someone who drops by a commentary cluster and lobs some kind of personal disparagement into it, followed (and this is an even more recent development) some remark indicating a hatred of GOD.
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Who is paying these people? From Whence do their marching orders come? Where is the location of Shelob’s Lair, the web of evil intrigue that orchestrates them? They obviously cannot think for themselves, based upon the comments so mechanistically reproduced.
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Ah well, when i had a house with lawn i always had to weed with constant vigilance and utmost vigor. i should not have expected anything else with regard to the WEB. i supposed that sometime between ‘98 and ‘08 some wormwood figured out that porn was not enough, they needed to endless repeat their idiocy here as they do in more general media.
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This too shall pass, and they shall be as another group a different group of Dwarves in that curious scene at the end of the Last Tale of Narnia.
I often wonder if the only reason the Hobbit isn’n taught in school is because of how heavily christian themed it is, because the writing is superbly genius. Then again, a large amount of schools teach The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which has much more clear cut Christian imagery, and was written by C.S. Lewis, who Tolkein personally converted to Catholocism. @happy athiest: Take this into account; Tolkein was a Catholic that openly professed his faith. Not only have his stories been said to have Christian themes by critics for years, but anyone with enough sense can pick up the books and find the biblical associations. For instance, one that takes a little bit of thought (God forbid) is Lothlorien as a garden of Eden and Galadriel as an Eve figure. These things are wrought throughout the story and if you try and deny that, you’re fooling yourself
Thank you so much for this beautiful essay. The Hobbit (a fairy tale) is written quite differently than the Lord of the Rings (an epic), yet as you so elegantly point out, it contains many of the same themes, well hidden for the reader to discover, if he will. Really the Hobbit is a sort of mini-epic, disguised as a fairy tale.
Of course, re-reading the Hobbit after reading the Lord of the Rings is an entirely different thing, just as re-reading the Lord of the Rings is a significantly different experience once one has read the Silmarillion.
Unfinished Tales includes a brief chapter on the Istari, the Wizards, who were Maiar, as was Sauron. So long as they were faithful, they had a deep yearning for the West they had left at the behest of the Valar. They also left behind a significant measure of their power and knowledge, and so had the task of succoring Middle-Earth by persuasion, in weakness. Gandalf, then, is also on a journey, carrying a cross for all in Middle Earth. “I pity even his (Sauron’s) slaves” he tells the proud Denethor II.
Both Gandalf, and on a much smaller scale, Bilbo, even though they have certain “powers” at their disposal, have to rely much more on common sense and pluck to accomplish the tasks they undertake. And in being faithful to their vocations, it does seem that Providence honors their fidelity. Here indeed is a theme we can all take to heart!
Thank you Mr. Pearce for your critique on the Hobbit.Tolkien’s magic have touched me, my children and hopefully will also touch my beautiful grandchildren as they journey through life in search for the Truth and final destination:the Kingdom of Heaven.To Mr. Happy Athiest; I am the daughter of a Brig. Gen. and the wife of a soldier of 38 years.I understand your pain and why your soul is “in a prison” of its own. I will promise you that every night at 3:00 AM EDT I will be praying so you can find the freedom only Christ can give and that you can embrace the cross as a soldier of the true Lord…And you will find not happiness but JOY!
Thank you for this article, Mr. Pearce. My life has included a journey from greatest darkness into light, and Tolkien definitely played a part in that along the way. His works certainly do ring true.
@Drake M: Actually, Lewis did not become Catholic, to Tolkien’s chagrin. Lewis returned to the Anglican faith of his childhood. It is very easy to mistake him for a Catholic, though, and he certainly has influenced many of us.
@Happy Atheist: you sound anything but happy to me. But I get it, having been an atheist myself once upon a time. I know how hard you must find it to believe that a person can be genuinely converted, because that reality is totally alien to your narrow, dreary, bitter worldview. You suggest that Mr. Pearce is nothing but a hypocrite and misanthrope, but I think you’re the hypocrite and misanthrope. Condemning a man for past darkness, while denying that it’s possible for him (or anybody) to ever leave that darkness behind—is that your idea of virtue and enlightenment? You say that good and evil and free will and providence are universal values, and yet your grasp of them seems pretty minimal.
I shall pray for your conversion. :)
tolkien was an occultist and a freemason…initially he wrote stories for his 4 children…but catholics should know that his sotires are about paganism, which is a form of satanism…how? simple…what does not come from God, comes from who? exactly…the hobbit and the lord of the rings films are anti-God and anti-catholicism films, since they promote anti-christian beliefs…pagan beliefs
Great article! I’m a huge fan of Tolkien and seeing the Catholicism infused throughout his works is beautiful!
@luis what on earth are you talking about? Tolkien is probably one of the most devout catholic authors of the 20th century. Have you ever actually read his works or about his life? Yes he does draw inspiration from mythologies, but he was no pagan. Do some research before throwing accusations of satanism at people. But God bless!
Thank you for this article.
I am thinking of reading The Hobbit to my kids over the Christmas break. I’ve never even read it myself. This article will help me to draw out Christian lessons of virtue and sacrifice and overcoming self-centeredness.
Well, you (Mr. Atheist)only affirm that clear Existence by your ignorance.
I have no doubts, Mr. Pearce you demonstrate that high and noble Godly nature; wisdom, knowledge and understanding.
Bravo!!!!
I think it is more a book that shows the importance of not being a lover of violence and of loving “home”. When does the hero finally get excited about the war he was conscripted into? It is when he realizes the dwarfs are really homeless and looking for home. That gets him motivated. Home is what Christ is born into, and it is he that reveals heaven to be just that: the city of Homes, strongly compact. A hill city.
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