"The Hobbit" Writing Assignment

Written by J. R. R. Tolkien, the story of The Hobbit does, in fact, follow most of aspects in the “hero’s journey” archetype. Everything from the protagonist, to the journey, to a resolution that changes up the aspects we’ve always known in stories like this. In the beginning of the story, Bilbo is established as an ordinary hobbit who enjoys being by himself in his land of Bag End, with his furry toes brushing up against the grass. I feel that this an interesting way to establish a hero, as a protagonist who is happy and content with is current living along the land of Bag End, even when he is approached to do what he needs to fro in his journey.

Bilbo is approached by wizard Galdalf, and talks to him about the mountains and tales of dragons an riches. To me, this a different way of approaching the usual hero’s journey. In usual hero journey stories, whether it be in Star Wars with Luke Skywalker learning of his true destiny, comic book movies with their iconic superhero protagonists up against their antagonists, to even Disney movies such as Aladdin and Hercules. The hero’s journey is a repeated, yet always embraced storytelling archetype that has lasted for such a long time and is always embraced by readers.

In The Hobbit, Bilbo sets out the journey alongside wizard, Gandalf in order to retrieve gold from a dangerous dragon.

Another aspect of the hero’s journey is lineage. For Bilbo, the story tells of his ancestors, talking about how his family was wealthy, eccentric, and even adventurous. Even though Bilbo has a well established and adventurous family lineage, Bilbo is known as their played back and restful hobbit. This gives more backstory to Bilbo and can explain why Galdalf approached Bilbo of for retrieving the gold need from the dragons and other creatures.

At the conculsion of the story, Bilbo recollects the events that he had gone through in his journey. Everything from the tasks he and his group endured to the sacrifices that they had gone through. This is usually found in almost every hero’s journey story. In Hobbit, group mates such as Fili and Kili have died and by the end, Bilbo is content on settling back in Bag End after his journey. This helps the story become different then the others. In most ending in heroic stories, the hero is ready to take on whatever happens in the future. Here, the protagonist isn’t as concerned to continue n being the hero. He just wants to sit back and relax at his home. This brings something different to the classic hero’s story and is done fairly we’ll, never feeling out of place.