Session 2 Summary

[Tony Meade]

SESSION 2

Revisiting presents:

• Any intentional hurt on Bilbo’s part doesn’t fit with the tone of the passage.
• Dora Baggins almost certainly laughed at the joke.
• Bilbo shows his real character by how generous and thoughtful the gifts were that were given to his poorer neighbors, especially the Gaffer, who gets multiple gifts that he would appreciate and enjoy.
• It’s important to remember that these are farewell gifts.

How old is the Gaffer?

• The Gaffer was a lad when Bilbo returned from Erebor, and Bilbo was 50.
• This would make Gaffer at least 20-30 years younger than Bilbo
• This emphasizes how “well-preserved” Bilbo was at 111, to be more vigorous than the Gaffer who is much younger.
• Also, Bilbo has led a much cushier life than the Gaffer, who is working class.

Are the large number gifts related to the early drafts, where he was trying to help with giving the Ring away?

• The gifts to the Gamgees come later, because the Gamgees are a later addition.

Hobbits compared/contrasted with dragons:

• Comparison: The Hobbits like to get things and fill up their holes with stuff.
• Contrast: The Hobbits seem to take pleasure in giving, and in enjoying what they have.

Where does Bilbo get his money?

• Tolkien seems to be less interested in economics than any other aspect of world-building.
• Tolkien refers to family money, similar to Jane Austen characters who have inherited or landed income.
• Bilbo seems to have inherited money, at least from his mother, Belladonna Took.

What about New World anachronisms?

• Potatoes – Originally come from the Americas, so why are there potatoes in the Shire?
• Tobacco – Tolkien originally used this word in The Hobbit but changed it in The Lord of the Rings to keep with his linguistic aesthetic of using older and less externally received English worlds.

Is the Shire basically late 19th Century England?

• Tolkien said yes, but not exactly. More in spirit than in the specifics.
• Tolkien said that he was basically a hobbit, but people took that too far, and Tolkien had to temper that assertion.
• The anachronisms come from the incongruity between the image of 19th Century England and the pseudo-medieval setting of the story.
• Tolkien is inconsistent with that image, but he was not interested at creating an exact replica of any given time period. This is an unknown, legendary period of our history.

Regarding class distinctions:

• The class distinctions among characters, including the Hobbits, are real and present in the story.
• Modern Americans can sometimes overemphasize the class distinctions, especially in their objections to them.
• The word “condescending” was a positive word in older times in Europe, but now it has a wholly negative connotation in modern America.
• Having sociological presuppositions about class relations does not allow readers to deal with the story and the world that the characters understand.
• The differences in class between Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are important to the story as it unfolds and their evolving relationships.

On “scandal-mongering”:

• Is this a bad thing? The scandals talked about seem to be very small and genteel.
• This seems to be a normal part of mainstream Hobbit culture, as are fat jokes.
• Sandyman crosses the line when he suggests murder is at play with Frodo’s parents.
• Frodo also judges Otho and Lobelia to have crossed the line when they start spreading rumors that Gandalf and/or Frodo had something to do with Bilbo’s disappearance, because it is malicious.

Back to the beginning:

• It’s important to remember that as Tolkien begins The Fellowship of the Ring, it is a sequel to The Hobbit, and that is how the first readers would have experienced it.
• The first chapter is in the spirit and tone of The Hobbit.

Bilbo’s reputation has completely flipped from the beginning of The Hobbit.

• Bilbo was typically boring and respectable.
• The beginning of The Hobbit says in advance that he will lose this reputation with his neighbors.
• Now, Bilbo is known for being peculiar and remarkable.
• Bilbo was already capable of wonder at the beginning of The Hobbit when the rest of the hobbits don’t seem to be. He was “prosier” than he believed. That prosy-ness is gone.

Hobbit culture in general has changed due to his influence.

Do the hobbits believe in the stories about Bilbo?

• The next generation of hobbits seem to doubt at least some things but do believe most of them.
• This is due to this being within their living memory.
• The second generation seems to build the stories up to a legend beyond the truth.
• The younger generation’s culture is changed by sixty years of Bilbo’s influence.
• Bilbo is probably the first local legend in the Shire since Bullroarer Took, and possibly, the Old Took.

Why will trouble come of Bilbo’s adventures, his riches, and his good preservation?

• The idea of good fortune and adventures having to be paid for are embedded in Hobbit culture.
• There is clearly something magical going on with Bilbo. Riches and perpetual youth are commonly things given by fairies.
• The Hobbits don’t doubt that this magic is working, but they also understand that there is a price to pay for magic.

The arrival of Gandalf and the dwarves:

• The narrator emphasizes that the Hobbits have no idea about the events in the wider world, nor Gandalf’s role and importance.
• Gandalf is the story-maker, so his arrival signals the beginning of the adventure.

On Gandalf’s fireworks:

• Bilbo’s memories of the fireworks in The Hobbit were all flower imagery.
• The description of the firework effects is beautiful and are described using images of beauty.
• The sounds and smells enhance the fireworks’ effects.
• The things represented are exposing the Hobbits to things that they might never see otherwise, and to make familiar things seem new. Gandalf is opening the Hobbits’ minds.
• Many elements of The Hobbit are represented in Gandalf’s imagery, as well as legendary images from The Silmarillion.
• The modern narrator referring to an express train for the benefit of modern readers.

On Bilbo’s disappearance:

• The last time there was a party at Bag End, Bilbo disappeared. This is a deliberate recapitulation by Bilbo, including the presence of the dwarves and Gandalf.
• Bilbo seems to be making a joke at his own expense, while shocking his friends and relations.
• Bilbo takes this time to be the initiator of his own adventure, as last time he was simply swept up into it.
• The Hobbits wondered at Bilbo all these years, but now they move from wonder to scorn. The scorn is due to Bilbo’s behavior at his age, and his lack of dignity.
• The Hobbits assume that this is a prank, and not that he actually disappeared nor that he is actually gone from the Shire.
• Gandalf’s flash is there to hide Bilbo’s vanishment, and to convince the Hobbits that it’s a prank, but it’s possible that they would have still thought that anyway.

Frodo and Gandalf’s conversation:

• When Gandalf refers to two different stories about Bilbo’s acquisition of the Ring, he’s referring to the original story in The Hobbit prior to the 1951 revision which changed that story.
• This is within the frame of The Hobbit as being Bilbo’s composition. Bilbo lies to justify himself.
• This is Tolkien retconning the story within the text.

Gandalf is probing Frodo with questions.

• What does Frodo know?
• What is his mind frame as he receives the Ring?

Gandalf advises Frodo to keep the Ring secret.

• He does not want Frodo to become a wonder like Bilbo.
• He acknowledges the gossip culture of the Shire.

The legend of Bilbo Baggins.

• Bilbo is remembered as “Mad Baggins”. It’s his madness and magic tricks that are emphasized, not his going off on journeys.
• To hobbits, they seem to think that his desire to leave the Shire at all is a sign of his madness.
• He ceases to be a real person and becomes a figure of myth.

END OF SESSION