Analysis: Chapters 6–7
Although the eagles and Beorn help the company tremendously, they
both express that hatred for goblins, rather than love for dwarves,
is their main reason for helping the company. Neither Beorn nor
the eagles have any interest in the dwarves’ gold, but as representatives
of pure nature, they are the sworn enemies of corrupted nature,
represented by the goblins and Wargs. The eagles generally keep
distant from the affairs of other races, and Beorn can be downright
cruel to those who displease him. When he finds a goblin and a Warg
prowling about in the woods, for instance, he puts the goblin’s
head on a stake and the Warg’s pelt on a tree outside his house
as a warning. Beorn and the eagles show all the brute force of nature
and, in fact, seem to be part of it. Gandalf surmises that, long
ago, Beorn was born from the mountains themselves.
By the end of Chapter 7, the episodic
nature of The Hobbit narrative becomes increasingly
clear. Like successive episodes of a popular television show, each
chapter brings a new setting and a new set of adventures. Chapter 2 involved
the trolls, Chapter 3 introduced us to Elrond
and Rivendell, Chapter 4 involved the goblins, Chapter 5 chronicled
Bilbo’s encounter with Gollum, and so forth. Once an adventure is
completed, it generally has relatively little bearing on the rest
of the novel. The one continuous thread, however, is that the changes
Bilbo undergoes as a result of each adventure affect his behavior
in subsequent adventures.
Moreover, until the group nears its destination
at the Lonely Mountain, the particular adventures that they face
have little to do with their ultimate goal of regaining Thorin’s
treasure. Dangers like the goblins and the tempest are merely incidental
obstacles the characters encounter on the way to their destination. These
impediments make up The Hobbit’s cast of antagonists, each
of whom predominates in a single adventure. Examples of particular
antagonists include the Great Goblin, the spiders of Mirkwood, and
the great dragon Smaug.
The novel’s overall tone grows darker and more ominous
the farther the company travels, so that the solace they find in
Beorn’s lair after escaping the goblins seems grim and violent
compared to the solace they found in Rivendell after escaping the
trolls. Even after the company escapes the goblins, the coming journey
into Mirkwood seems so perilous that the road ahead seems more frightening than
the road behind. This gradually darkening tone builds tension. It
also transforms the novel’s dynamic from a lighthearted children’s story
into a more serious epic. This gradual change corresponds to the
reader’s immersion into the tale and to Bilbo’s transformation into
a true hero. As Bilbo travels farther from the safe and familiar comforts
of Hobbiton, the dangers he faces heighten, and he evolves from
a humble hobbit into a noble protagonist heroically negotiating
his way through evil.
