Tolkien's Fantasy: A Good Ol' Fashioned Adventure

When asked to name history's most known fantasy authors, Tolkien's name is bound to come up. His legendary world- and language-building skills shine in his Lord of the Rings series, and whose stories have been adapted and readapted for all sorts of media forms. For this week's reading, I went back to an old favorite of his: The Hobbit. It had been almost a decade since I last read more than a few excerpts of it, and was very excited to read the novel with fresh eyes.

After having studied the elements of the hero's journey both in middle/high school and in this class, I've come to realize that Tolkien follows the formula pretty accurately in his prequel novel. From the hero's beginning to refusing the call to adventure, all the way to the reward, Bilbo goes through every stage in the hero's journey. Tolkein's beautiful descriptions portray Hobbiton and the Shire as the perfect place to live an ordinary life; and the perfect place to rouse our dear hero to action. Gandalf acts as the mentor, guiding Bilbo to join as the 14th member of the band of dwarves. Smaug presents a very compelling ordeal for Bilbo, and the road back is slowly taken so that Bilbo can be "rebirthed" into a better Baggins than he was before leaving the shire.

Although the hero's journey does pave the way for a normally compelling story, Tolkein's writing and robust world really take the Hobbit to the next level. The novel was a joy to read a second time; and I look forward to a third read in the future.

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