Greed In The Hobbit

Tolkien’s Development of Greed in The Hobbit

In narrative writing, one of the crucial elements is the plot, or the sequences of events. Oftentimes, these sequences of events are used to develop common topics or themes through literary works. In The Hobbit, J.R.R Tolkien uses various sequences of events to develop the theme of greed. In the beginning of the book, Tolkien begins developing the theme of greed when Bilbo decides to join the party. He writes, “as they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands … moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves … Then something Tookish woke up inside him” (28). As the dwarves tell stories of the dragon hoard, Bilbo becomes drawn to the dwarfish treasure. This first instance of greed demonstrates the motivating power of greed. As hobbits tend to avoid the unexpected, without Bilbo’s initial greed, he would not have had the motivation to join the adventure, making this greed very important to the story. Tolkien continues to build on Bilbo’s greed throughout the book, assisting in the development of the theme of greed.

Soon thereafter, the party had its first encounter with treasure, a treasure was found in the trolls cave. Tolkien tells that “they brought up their ponies, and carried away the pots of

He relates, “and now usually [Gollum] hid [the ring] in a hole in the rock on his island, and was always going back to look at it. And still sometimes he put it on, when he could not bear to be parted from it any longer” (87). Gollum’s life had become centered on the ring. Despite his isolation, he was consumed with the idea of someone finding his ring and stealing it. This greed defined him; demonstrating the effects of greed when left unchecked, and also providing an important incite to greed (that is the consuming power), which Tolkien would later