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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Chapter 1: An Unexpected Journey
Explanation and Analysis—Songs:
Songs are a motif in the novel. In Chapter 1, the dwarves first burst into song while they are cleaning up from the feast they have pressured Bilbo into hosting for them:
Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates–
Smash the bottles and burn the corks!
In this song, the dwarves tease Bilbo about how worried he is for his house, all while treating his belongings with care and respect. Their clever use of wordplay and music helps them build a lighthearted rapport with the newest member of their adventuring party. Without the song, they would merely be polite guests cleaning up their mess. With the song, though, they establish Bilbo as enough a part of their in-group to tease.
Soon, Thorin moves on to a more serious song that summarizes Smaug's assault on the Lonely Mountain and foretells of the dwarves' return home. Whereas the previous song was designed to help Bilbo stop fretting about the state of his kitchen, this song transfixes him and makes him eager to join the adventure. Although very different from one another, both songs are instrumental in convincing Bilbo to join the adventure. Tolkien thus establishes songs early on as an important tool both for preserving history and for drawing people into ongoing events that will one day be part of history. Telling stories in song allows Thorin and the other dwarves to push history in the direction they want it to go.
In early chapters, Bilbo finds wordplay difficult. He spends all his time listening to songs rather than writing or performing them himself. As a passive listener rather than an active singer or storyteller, he does not seem to have much control over the direction of events. For instance, he listens to Gandalf outwit the trolls and save all the dwarves from being cooked. He also struggles to come up with good riddles to stump Gollum and only escapes this encounter by putting on the ring and becoming invisible. Over the course of the novel, Bilbo develops his facility with language and begins taking charge of events. In Chapter 19, it is a song of his own making that marks his development in this regard:
Coming to a rise he could see his own Hill in the distance, and he stopped suddenly and said:
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree...
[...]
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
Gandalf looked at him. “My dear Bilbo!” he said. “Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were.”
Bilbo's song is not dissimilar to the songs the dwarves and elves have been singing for the entire book. Gandalf is impressed, however, with Bilbo's spontaneous song about his own homecoming. It represents the active role he has taken in telling his own life's story. He finally understands himself as a historic hero whose tale is worth telling, and he has the language for it on the tip of his own tongue.
Related Themes:
Chapter 4: Over Hill and Under Hill
Explanation and Analysis—Bilbo's Dreams:
Bilbo's dreams often foreshadow events just before they come to pass. One example of this motif is in Chapter 4, just before the party is kidnapped by goblins:
[Bilbo] could not go to sleep for a long while; and when he did sleep, he had very nasty dreams. He dreamed that a crack in the wall at the back of the cave got bigger and bigger, and opened wider and wider, and he was very afraid but could not call out or do anything but lie and look. Then he dreamed that the floor of the cave was giving way, and he was slipping—beginning to fall down, down, goodness knows where to.
As soon as Bilbo wakes up, he realizes that the wall of the cave has indeed cracked open, and the ponies have already disappeared into it. His dream does not seem especially prophetic or magical. Likely as not, he simply begins noticing his surroundings while he is still asleep. However, his ability to notice, and his gut feeling as he goes to sleep that something is wrong, suggests that he is more astute than anyone might give him credit for. When Bilbo worries about something or has a nightmare about it, he is not being an anxious coward unfit for adventures. Rather, he is most likely onto something and wise to be afraid.
In fact, in addition to demonstrating Bilbo's observant nature, this dream also foreshadows his growing courage. Bilbo dreams that he alone falls down into a cavern that leads to some deep unknown. Try as he might, he cannot "call out or do anything but lie and look." The crack in the cave and the fall into the unknown foreshadow not only the events of Chapters 4 and 5, but also the opening of the Lonely Mountain in Chapter 11. The side of the Lonely Mountain opens onto a passage that is darker than imaginable and remarkably similar to the goblins' crack in the cave wall. By that point, Bilbo is ready and willing to walk into the dark by himself. He meets Smaug inside and emerges victorious with some of the dragon's treasure. Bilbo has no choice but to be pulled into the goblins' lair; with his willing descent into the Lonely Mountain, he exercises the agency he cannot find here. It is his ultimate confrontation of the intense fear he feels in this dream.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5: Riddles in the Dark
Explanation and Analysis—Foil After Foil:
Throughout his adventure, Bilbo encounters a series of foils that help him build his own identity. One strong example of this motif occurs in Chapter 5, when Gollum correctly guesses Bilbo's riddle about "sun on daisies":
“Ss, ss, ss,” said Gollum. He had been underground a long long time, and was forgetting this sort of thing. But just as Bilbo was beginning to hope that the wretch would not be able to answer, Gollum brought up memories of ages and ages and ages before, when he lived with his grandmother in a hole in a bank by a river, “Sss, sss, my preciouss,” he said. “Sun on the daisies it means, it does.”
At first, Gollum couldn't seem more different from Bilbo. He lurks in the dark of the goblins' cave and subsists on raw fish and the meat of anyone he can catch. His life seems far from the cozy existence Bilbo is used to in his hobbit hole. Even in his house under the hill, Bilbo favors the rooms on the outside because they let in sunlight. Gollum hates light and would surely slink into the darker rooms. Nonetheless, this passage hints that Gollum was once far more like Bilbo. He too lived in a hole in the ground and had a family. He used to look out on the river and the flowers outside. Something drove him deep into the cave, where all he cares about is catching fish and protecting the ring. This existence has driven him practically out of his mind. The passage hints that such an existence could lie in Bilbo's future if he retreats too deep into his hole in the ground.
Smaug, too, is a foil for Bilbo. The dragon is so obsessed with treasure and the comfort it brings him that he turns into a dangerous monster. He isolates himself inside the mountain and attacks anyone who dares to enter. He also becomes a master manipulator, lying and twisting his words to wear down his enemies. Bilbo is far from a dragon, but he does nearly refuse to help the dwarves because he is so attached to his belongings and comfort at home. He is a reluctant host when they show up for tea in Chapter 1 and begin eating all his precious food. Bilbo also hones his own skill with language over the course of the novel and begins to lie and manipulate in some strategic ways. However, unlike Smaug, Bilbo chooses fellowship and the greater good over personal comfort. Smaug's greed and deception help Bilbo understand the levels he will never stoop to for personal gain, even if he has some traits in common with the dragon.
More than anyone, Bilbo seems to fashion himself after Beorn. When the adventurers seek shelter with Beorn, Gandalf insists that they show up on his doorstep two at a time—just like the wizard had the dwarves do at Bilbo's house. The reason is that Beorn values his solitude and can be dangerous when he wants to be. For different reasons, Gandalf knows that it is important not to spook either Bilbo or Beorn. However, when approached carefully and respectfully, Beorn is happy to host the travelers. He even provides them with food and lends them ponies to help them on the next leg of their journey. When the whole world seems to be in peril from goblins and Wargs, Beorn shows up to help. Bilbo may be smaller and less formidable than Beorn, but he nonetheless emulates the bear-man's principled balance between self-interest and community engagement.
Related Themes:
Chapter 13: Not At Home
Explanation and Analysis—Light and Dark:
Imagery associated with light and dark is a motif in the novel. Often, dark heralds danger and evil, while light brings reprieve from these things. There is an exemplary interplay between light and dark in Chapter 13, when Bilbo and the dwarves find the door out of the Lonely Mountain:
A misty sun sent its pale light between the arms of the Mountain, and beams of gold fell on the pavement at the threshold.
A whirl of bats frightened from slumber by their smoking torches flurried over them; as they sprang forward their feet slithered on stones rubbed smooth and slimed by the passing of the dragon. Now before them the water fell noisily outward and foamed down towards the valley.
The light of the sun is not particularly strong. "Pale" and filtered by mist, the sun's rays ought to be lackluster. However, to the hobbit and dwarves who have been stuck inside the dark mountain lair of a dangerous dragon, the sunbeams have all the majestic splendor of "gold." The sight of the sun is as valuable as any real gold they might have found within the mountain. Under its light, by way of the waterfall, they will still have to walk on slippery stone. This stone, however, will feel different beneath their feet than the "slimed" stone over which the dragon has "slithered" before them. It is wet instead from the "noisy," "foaming" water that comes together with the sun to render the valley below fertile. The feel of the wet stone outside the mountain is associated with the promise of life and abundance Smaug long ago extinguished inside the mountain.
Light imagery is not always as straightforward as this. Earlier in the chapter, when Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, Tolkien plays with light imagery to emphasize the intense temptation the hobbit feels:
Ever as he climbed, the same white gleam had shone before him and drawn his feet towards it. Slowly it grew to a little globe of pallid light. [...] At last he looked down upon it, and he caught his breath. The great jewel shone before his feet of its own inner light, and yet, cut and fashioned by the dwarves, who had dug it from the heart of the mountain long ago, it took all light that fell upon it and changed it into ten thousand sparks of white radiance shot with glints of the rainbow.
The way the Arkenstone refracts light is beautiful, but it is also overwhelming. Its "inner light" suggests that it is powerful and that it has the capacity to light up any dark space—that is, to be used for good. At the same time, all the light that shines on it is "changed...into ten thousand sparks of white radiance shot with glints of the rainbow." Bilbo's good nature is a kind of "light" in itself that he shines upon the Arkenstone. The stone bends and scatters this light so that Bilbo's innate goodness is no longer angled in a clear direction. He becomes confused about exactly what to do with the stone, and he ends up hiding it until he realizes that he can use it for diplomacy. Even then, he is not sure he is using the stone purely for good, especially given that he must betray Thorin to carry out his plan. The stone's ability to refract light represents the challenge of harnessing great power for good. Even the best-intentioned people can be tempted, corrupted, or simply befuddled in the face of a powerful object like the Arkenstone.
Related Themes:
Chapter 19: The Last Stage
Explanation and Analysis—Songs:
Covered in "Chapter 1: An Unexpected Journey Explanation and Analysis—Songs"
Songs are a motif in the novel. In Chapter 1, the dwarves first burst into song while they are cleaning up from the feast they have pressured Bilbo into hosting for them:
Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates–
Smash the bottles and burn the corks!
In this song, the dwarves tease Bilbo about how worried he is for his house, all while treating his belongings with care and respect. Their clever use of wordplay and music helps them build a lighthearted rapport with the newest member of their adventuring party. Without the song, they would merely be polite guests cleaning up their mess. With the song, though, they establish Bilbo as enough a part of their in-group to tease.
Soon, Thorin moves on to a more serious song that summarizes Smaug's assault on the Lonely Mountain and foretells of the dwarves' return home. Whereas the previous song was designed to help Bilbo stop fretting about the state of his kitchen, this song transfixes him and makes him eager to join the adventure. Although very different from one another, both songs are instrumental in convincing Bilbo to join the adventure. Tolkien thus establishes songs early on as an important tool both for preserving history and for drawing people into ongoing events that will one day be part of history. Telling stories in song allows Thorin and the other dwarves to push history in the direction they want it to go.
In early chapters, Bilbo finds wordplay difficult. He spends all his time listening to songs rather than writing or performing them himself. As a passive listener rather than an active singer or storyteller, he does not seem to have much control over the direction of events. For instance, he listens to Gandalf outwit the trolls and save all the dwarves from being cooked. He also struggles to come up with good riddles to stump Gollum and only escapes this encounter by putting on the ring and becoming invisible. Over the course of the novel, Bilbo develops his facility with language and begins taking charge of events. In Chapter 19, it is a song of his own making that marks his development in this regard:
Coming to a rise he could see his own Hill in the distance, and he stopped suddenly and said:
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree...
[...]
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
Gandalf looked at him. “My dear Bilbo!” he said. “Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were.”
Bilbo's song is not dissimilar to the songs the dwarves and elves have been singing for the entire book. Gandalf is impressed, however, with Bilbo's spontaneous song about his own homecoming. It represents the active role he has taken in telling his own life's story. He finally understands himself as a historic hero whose tale is worth telling, and he has the language for it on the tip of his own tongue.
Related Themes:
