The Hobbit - Chapter 06 - Out of the Frying-Pan Into the Fire

[Lhunardawen]

Because I've never heard of the proverb before I read the book, I must say that this is one of the best chapter titles I've ever encountered!

Originally Posted by Esty

The newly-found ring enables Bilbo to impress the others with his 'burgling' abilities. Why do you think he was reluctant to tell them about it?

Elempi got there before I did. Why would a magician reveal his secret to anyone, especially when previously his talents were doubted?

It's a stretch, but maybe Bilbo was also driven to hide it by a bit of paranoia. After all, he technically stole it, and the last thing he would want is somebody else stealing it from him.

Originally Posted by A_Brandybuck

One word also drew my attention: christmas tree
Where did the narrator get this word, because there is no christmas-tree in Middle-Earth, because there is no christmas.
But I think, that this is caused by another instance, the narrator of the story was surely not an inhabitant of Middle-Earth, but of our World and he is the one, who drew the comparison. He surely knows about Christmas

Once again, you got there before me. I even had the words underlined! Funny how it's just two familiar words in our vocabulary, but seeing them in a book like this had me thinking about the author and his relation to the story he narrates, as well as his intended audience. Wouldn't a non-Middle Earth word be out of place in this story? Or did he want - somehow - to connect more personally with the readers?

Moving on, I felt a certain oneness with the wolves as they howled at the moon! (Maybe I should stop antagonizing the Wargs and the Warg-friends...)

Originally Posted by Kath

Gandalf's fiery attack on the wolves does seem reckless, and so a little out of character if you look at the LotR Gandalf who seems to think over every action, but the TH Gandalf seems less concerned with the consequences of original actions. It might also suggest that he had never dealt with that particular situation before, and didn't really know what he was doing.

That was what I thought too, although I had to drag it a little because my knowledge of Gandalf was a bit hesitant to come to that conclusion. Perhaps he was feeling desperate, or he thought the Wargs were not wise enough (a to Eomer, Formy and Nilp) to come up with a way to use his weapon to their advantage. In any case, it was certainly non-Gandalfesque.

But it's interesting to note that I find this Gandalf more human than the wizard we get to know in LotR. This particular passage suggests so:

"Go away! little boys!" Gandalf shouted in answer. "It isn't bird-nesting time. Also naughty little boys that play with fire get punished." He said it to make them angry, and to show them he was not frightened of them - though of course he was, wizard though he was.

This answer of his certainly lightened the mood after the goblins' dreadfully scary song.

How did you all feel when Bilbo was almost left behind by the Eagles again? I pity him for having to hang on to Dori's legs for that long, but at least I suppose he got an effective shock treatment to his acrophobia after that flight.

Speaking of flight, isn't it interesting how that rescue by the Eagles is a precursor to Sam and Frodo's rescue on Mount Doom several years later?

Finally, on a very serious note, the mini-landslide at the beginning of the chapter prove a bit fortunate for them as their travel was made less burdensome thanks to the force of gravity. But for me I read that part at the wrong time, what with the recent landslide in Southern Leyte here in the Philippines - which I'm sure some of you have heard news of - that claimed so many lives. Of course I can't blame Tolkien, but I couldn't help but be reminded of the tragedy when I read that.

[Bêthberry]

I suppose it is time to raise a point I have been noticing as I reread TH for this discussion. In general the question is, "How is this a children's story and how is it not, if it is not?"

Time was, academe turned its nose up at children's literature. It wasn't so long ago that literature departments refused to allow courses in children's literature or, allowed only students in the Education programme (that is, those training to be teachers) to earn credit for English courses in Children's literature. Didn't Tolkien himself express regret that he had written TH as a children's story?

Yet children's literature has become one of the finest areas of development in literature in the last decades. Ideas about what children's literature is and how it should be written are prime topics for discussion.

So, what can we gather about Tolkien's ideas concerning children's literature from TH? One aspect I have noticed is how the narrator seems to describe events and characters from what I think must represent Tolkien's conception of a child's point of view. This is, I think, what makes Bilbo seem so childlike at times: Tolkien describes a point or feeling so as to make his audience--his sons--identify with Bilbo.

This is the excerpt in this chapter which makes me think Tolkien might have made a very good Sunday School teacher. It is the opening paragraphs:

Originally Posted by Tolkien

Bilbo had escaped the goblins but he did not know where he was. He had lost hood, cloak, food, pony, his buttons and his friends. He wandered on and on, till the sun began to sink westwards -- behind the mountains. Their shadows fell across Bilbo's path, and he looked back. Then he looked forward and could see before him only ridges and slopes falling towards lowlands and plains glimpsed occasionally between the trees.

"Good heavens," he exclaimed. "I seem to have got right to the other side of the Misty Mountains, right to the edge of the Land Beyond! Where and O where can Gandalf and the dwarves have got to? I only hope to goodness they are not still back there in the power of the goblins!"

Children are by nature empiricists. Until they have developed the habits (and brain function) capable of abstract thought, they live by observation. Here is our little hobbit fellow noticing very experientially just where he is. We might perhaps as well comment on the style of dialogue here, but I prefer to move on to another point about this opening.

Originally Posted by continuing on from above quote

He still wandered on, out of the little high valley, over its edge, and down the slopes beyond; but all the while a very uncomfortable thought was growing inside him. He wondered whether he ought not, now he had the magic ring, to go back into the horrible, horrible, tunnels and look for his friends. He had just made up his mind that it was his duty, that he must turn back -- and very miserable he felt about it--when he heard voices.

Now this paragraph represents well a child's sense of moral dilemma, the quandry between protecting oneself and doing what he has been told is the right thing to do.

There are other passages in the previous chapters where the narrator gives to Bilbo this kind of child psychology. I think it is Tolkien the story teller working on his audience, to help them identify with his hero.

Does this make sense?

What else can we gather about Tolkien's ideas concerning children's literature from this story?

[Thinlómien]

Bethberry
Does this make sense?

A bit too much even. Probably needless to say, but I've never thought about it like that. (Maybe it's because I'm myself such a child still... ) But doesn't that psychology work with adults as well? they don't maybe think about it on that Winnie-the-Pooh-ish way, but aren't their minds after all quite similar?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

: they don't maybe think about it on that Winnie-the-Pooh-ish way, but aren't their minds after all quite similar?

No.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

No.

Okay, but even if they tend to do the thing they have to but they don't want to don't they have the same kind of feelings (deep) inside them?

In Finnish this chapter's name is something like "From a ditch to a bog." I found the English name much more accurate and amusing, but that's nearly always so with translations...

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Okay, but even if they tend to do the thing they have to but they don't want to don't they have the same kind of feelings (deep) inside them?

Yes indeed! Children have intense emotional feelings; as the infant develops, emotion is very closely tied in with memory. But the brain develops over years. Have you ever watched an infant come to realise that that those things flapping in front of his face--hands--are a part of his or her body? Development is rapid in the first three to four years, a bit more slowly until age 10, and then, well, it's not quite a grinding halt then. There is also some debate about the specific nature of adolescent brain function, though. I digress!

But my point isn't so much the feelings as it is the particular form of argument and the style , which is expressly suited to a particular understanding of children. It is purposefully designed to help Tolkien's audience identify with the hero, Bilbo. We see Bilbo in many instances as child-like because he is made to appear through the feelings and perceptions which Tolkien attributed to children. Frodo's thought processes are handled very differently in LotR.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

: But doesn't that psychology work with adults as well? they don't maybe think about it on that Winnie-the-Pooh-ish way, but aren't their minds after all quite similar?

Thinking more about your comment, hinlómien, I've been wondering if a better way to answer you is, simply, to say that the important part is the Winnie-the-Pooh-ish way. That's the catch.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Lhunardawen

Finally, on a very serious note, the mini-landslide at the beginning of the chapter prove a bit fortunate for them as their travel was made less burdensome thanks to the force of gravity. But for me I read that part at the wrong time, what with the recent landslide in Southern Leyte here in the Philippines - which I'm sure some of you have heard news of - that claimed so many lives. Of course I can't blame Tolkien, but I couldn't help but be reminded of the tragedy when I read that.

I did a quick "find" on 'landslide' and 'avalanche' on this thread and didn't find any answers to your comment, so I'll give this a go. Tolkien actually experienced an avalanche in the Alps when he was young. He was on a narrow path with a group, and an avalanche started, and a boulder passed right between him and a lady walking in front of him. Had he or the woman been a few feet farther forward or back, they would have been dead. So Tolkien includes it in TH in all seriousness as to how dangerous landslides are.

[deal_with_it]

Why didn't the Orcs of Moria use the same tactic against the Fellowship when they escaped out the Eastern Door? There had to be other passages besides just the Bridge? maybe not

[Tuor in Gondolin]

There had to be other passages besides just the Bridge? maybe not

I think not, unless they were "magic" doors only discovered
and/or opened by dwarf passwords.