Tolkien’s tales The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have been lauded as among the great stories of our time, and have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide. These specific narratives are only a drop in the bucket of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth history as laid out in The Silmarillion. So why did Tolkien tell these stories above all the other fantastical tales that played out over the ages of his created world? The stories themselves are undeniably riveting, profound, and full of wonder, but among the Ages of Middle-Earth, why focus in on the adventures of some hobbits of The Shire? Tolkien hints at an answer to this in a letter he wrote to a Mr. Thompson in 1956 in which he states “I loved them,” the hobbits, “myself, since I love the vulgar and simple as dearly as the noble, and nothing moves my heart (beyond all the passions and heartbreaks of the world) so much as ‘ennoblement’ (from the Ugly Duckling to Frodo).” In The Lord of the Rings, and to a lesser degree The Hobbit, the close interweaving of the fates and paths of both the noble (in The Fellowship, Thorin’s company, et. al.) with the ignoble, in the hobbits. The hobbits are thrust onto a decidedly foreign path to complete a grand quest on which the future of the world depends (picture a pig being put on The Manhattan Project).
The inclusion of the hobbits on these quests is neither an accident nor a misguided attempt by Gandalf to get the hobbits to lose a little weight. The hobbits each serve a very important purpose on their respective quests, something Gandalf in his incredible wisdom could either foresee or predict. In The Hobbit, it is Bilbo who discovers Smaug’s weakness, and it is Bilbo who burgles the Arkenstone to Bard and the Elvenking, despite the mortal peril inherent to both acts (Hobbit). In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo becomes the ringbearer, Sam his faithful servant, and Merry and Pippin wards to the two great kingdoms of men (LotR). By one means or another, the hobbits each undergo some form of ennoblement (much to the horror of the rest of The Shire).
Tolkien claims of The Lord of the Rings “it has no allegorical intentions, general, particular, or topical, moral, religious, or political,” and to a certain extent, I believe him. I believe that whilst writing his stories that he had no ulterior motive, be it a social commentary or pointed censure, in mind. However, as with all writing, some of himself and his life made its way into his work. How this relates to the ennoblement of hobbits, I could only conjecture, but given Tolkien’s hobbit-like tendencies, and his admitted lack of courage, perhaps we can view Tolkien’s work as a subtle ennoblement of himself and his life’s achievements. Certainly, Tolkien came from humble beginnings: raised by a single mother, shunned for her religious choices. He fit his own definition of “the vulgar and simple” both in birth and lifestyle, and while becoming the world’s presiding expert on philology might not sound as impressive as carrying the Ring of Power from Bag End to the chasms of Mount Doom, it is a laudable achievement nonetheless (and perhaps more attainable given the current state of our world). If nothing else, he seems to be saying that sometimes the pipe-weed smoking, second breakfast eating, verdancy preserving type of folk are the heroes the world is in dire need of.
Hobbits, however, were not the only ignoble beings that Tolkien had a deep affection for. He states in a letter that he was “much in love with plants and above all trees, and always have been; and find(s) human maltreatment of them as hard to bear as some find ill-treatment of animals.” Resonances of this fondness can be especially seen in Tolkien’s introduction of the ents, specifically Treebeard, in The Two Towers. This is one of his most clear-cut cases of ennobling and otherwise ignoble species. Trees, in our world, and indeed much of Middle-Earth, are very common, and while physically imposing and aesthetically pleasing, have nothing in the way of conscience or ambulatory capability. Tolkien’s ennoblement is hinted at in The Old Forest and fully realized with the introduction of full sentience in Treebeard (and later his army of ents). The ents are an ancient and decidedly noble race, with Treebeard being the oldest and noblest, but they have rather fallen back into ignobility with some of the trees returning to their roots. Following Treebeard’s discovery of Saruman’s wickedness (his burning and pillaging of Fangorn Forest), the ents are roused to action and see to the imprisonment of the wizard in his own fortress (certainly a moment of catharsis for Tolkien).
Tolkien’s love of the ignoble is something that can be seen clearly over the expanses of his works. What he is most interested with, and also most enheartened by, is the ennoblement, of the previously ignoble. How a hobbit, or ent, makes that transition from apathetic or hedonistic to virtuous, honorable, and in the grand scheme of things, meaningful seems to drive Tolkien’s stories as much as the quests that incite these transformations. In these grand tales of adventure and ascension do we sense whispers of Tolkien’s own life? Perhaps. But what we are inarguably left with is an evocative, transcendent tale of ennoblement where the pleasures of home are still held dear.
