Of Hobbits and Metaphors — Tolkien’s Trick to an Enduring Epic
No matter how far away they lead you, the most enduring authors are those who recall you back to yourself.
Some stories are one day wonders. Just a flash in the pan. Other stories resonate. They become part of a generation’s consciousness.
The quote in the image above is a barely one sentence long piece of dialogue.
As writers we could talk a lot about how the words chosen by Tolkien do an excellent job of showing who Frodo is: someone who has never left home before. Someone who has no idea what lies ahead. We can reflect on how this dialogue is a window to some of Frodo’s deepest desires and fears. How it illustrates the dangers of the journey the hobbits will have to make. This dialogue serves as introduction to the character and to the perils the plot will utilise for dramatic effect.
What is most important is this — within these words is something that strikes the reader on a personal level. This description of the Shire as the safe home left behind, perhaps never again returned to but giving strength when called to mind, is the perfect summing up of childhood. No matter how difficult the wanderings we undertake in our adult lives, the journey is made easier knowing where we’re from. Even when we may never again truly inhabit the world of our childhood.
When the characters experience something we can relate to on such a deep emotional level, we become anchored to their journeys. Their victories become our wins; their defeats our losses. Frodo isn’t simply saying, “Oh no. I’m scared.” He’s brought us all together, all readers everywhere in time and space, in his articulation of the universal fear of straying too far from the familiar.
How does Tolkien do it? He uses metaphor subtly, without being clumsy or heavy handed. Frodo isn’t a plot puppet who only exists to make a clever point about nostalgia, adulthood, and leaving innocence behind. He is a well-rounded individual with his own customised complexities.
More of the quote in context is here:
‘I should like to save the Shire, if I could — though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don’t feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.
‘Of course, I have sometimes thought of going away, but I imagined that as a kind of holiday, a series of adventures like Bilbo’s or better, ending in peace. But this would mean exile, a flight from danger into danger, drawing it after me. And I suppose I must go alone, if I am to do that and save the Shire.
- J.R.R Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring”
It’s these truths that make an epic what it is.
