Bruc3w4yn3
New Member
I was trying to suggest this connection during the class last week, but I think there was too much going on in the chat and my idea needed more space than a message or two could fit. We were discussing the effect of Sam’s commentary in multiple discussions on the story, and I couldn’t help drawing a connection between his sardonic retort against Aragorn calling the cliff face a “shelter” and the way Tolkien uses the narrator in the Hobbit, particularly in Riddles in the Dark, to remind the reader of the perilous reality and stakes underpinning the sort of epic scope of their quest. The sentence that leapt to mind was, “I imagine you know the answer, of course, or can guess it as easy as winking, since you are sitting comfortably at home and have not the danger of being eaten to disturb your thinking.” The effect in the Hobbit is both playful, simultaneously self-deprecating and flattering to the reader, as well as grim, reminding us that for Bilbo the stakes were quite high. There is a charming earnestness in the way it addresses the reader directly, just as Sam is hopelessly earnest to the point that he has the nerve to scoff derisively at Aragorn’s loose usage of the term shelter. The significance of this connection for me is the paradoxical romantic realism of Tolkien’s writing. The Lord of the Rings is all about the high relating to the low, and Sam is at the fulcrum of that tension. We see that in the beginning of the novel, Sam is captivated by Mr Bilbo’s many stories, but he is equally captive to the plain old Hobbit sense passed on to him by the Gaffer; his world is split between the mythic and the mundane. His response to the suggestion that he accompany Frodo to Rivendel, where he will see “Elves, sir!” is to burst into tears because it’s simply too much to process: it’s both everything that he has ever wanted and everything that he fears all wrapped into one. Remarkably, both his desire and his duty have aligned in a way that he could never have dreamed, much less to have guessed. Throughout the story, we see Sam getting in the “last word” of a discussion in his own small way, through mutters and asides, multiple times, starting shortly after the encounter with Bill Ferny in Bree: “waste of a good apple,” and “what do they eat when they can’t get Hobbit?” are two early examples of Sam’s sardonic wit. These serve the purpose of developing Sam’s character in a very specific and purposeful way, while allowing Tolkien to reiterate the same theme that inspired Faramir’s observation about the soldier and the sword; true valour and heroism is rarely glamorous for the valorous and the heroic. War isn’t glorious; heroism is silent; leadership is service; valour is sacrifice. As for Sam, he begins to recognize that there’s a gap between the adventures of Mr Bilbo’s stories and the reality of living in the wilderness, but this disillusionment (which was foreshadowed with his experience t Gildor and company) is only setting up the major change in him: the character arc that culminates with his recognition of the significance of the star of high hope. This especially connects to his recognition of the connection to the phial of Galadriel, her mirror, and the story of Eärendil, along with the part Frodo (and he) play in the great story of the world. “don’t the great tales never end?”