Personification In The Hobbit

What would you do if a stranger showed up to your door and expected you to go on a dangerous adventure to assist with an unrealistic task? Would you be willing to leave the comfort of your home and step out of your element? In The Hobbit, written by J. R. R. Tolkien, lives an unmotivated hobbit that is approached at his home by a group of intimidating dwarves. The hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, is asked to be a part of their long, perilous journey to retrieve the arkenstone from the dungeon of Smaug. the dragon. At first, Bilbo turns down the favor without a second thought. Eventually, he changes his mind and decides to part take in the risky adventure. He escapes death many times and has to overcome numerous obstacles. In the end, Bilbo Baggins is

“Faint echoes ran around the unseen hall, but there was no answer”(200). This is personification because echoes are just reflections of sound, and cannot physically run around in unseen halls. Tolkien is just trying to imply that echoes are everywhere, and this exaggeration helps the audience visualize the intensity of the echoes. Personifications also appears in Chapter 5 when Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves are traveling through the hills and the mountains.“The nights were comfortless and chill, and they did not dare to sing or talk too loud, for the echoes were uncanny, and the silence seemed to dislike being broken-except by the noise of water and the wail of wind and the crack of stone”(52). This is an example of personification because silence does not have emotions. Silence is simply the lack of audible sound, not something that has the option to like or dislike. In Chapter 9, the elves find the dwarves in the forest and capture then. Bilbo places his ring of invisibility on his finger, and follows the elves and dwarves to see where the dwarves are being taken. The Elvenking throws the dwarves into his dungeon until they agree to tell the king why they have come to Mirkwood. Bilbo discovers a passage to help the dwarves escape. During the escape of imprisonment, the elves sing a song around the river-door. This song consisted of multiple personifications. “Out into the whispering breeze, past the rushes, past the reeds, past the marsh’s waving weeds, through the mist that riseth white, up from mere and pool at night! Follow, follow stars that leap, up the heavens cold and steep”(169). This part of the song of the song is an example personification because a breeze cannot whisper, and stars do not leap. A breeze can make sounds, but cannot perform a human act such a whispering. Also, stars cannot leap. They may move in the sky, but they do not leap like that of a