Editing Hobbit (section)

== Analysis ==

=== Moral significance ===

The Tolkien critic [[Paul H. Kocher]] notes that Tolkien's literary techniques require readers to view hobbits as like humans, especially when placed under moral pressure to survive a war that threatens to devastate their land.{{sfn|Kocher|1974|pp=106, 119}} [[Frodo Baggins|Frodo]] becomes in some ways the symbolic representation of the conscience of hobbits, a point made explicitly in the story "[[Leaf by Niggle]]" which Tolkien wrote at the same time as the first nine chapters of ''The Lord of the Rings''.{{sfn|Kocher|1974|pp=144–151}} Niggle is a painter struggling against the summons of death to complete his one great canvas, a picture of a tree with a background of forest and distant mountains. He dies with the work incomplete, undone by his imperfectly generous heart: "it made him uncomfortable more often than it made him do anything".<ref name="Dublin Leaf" group=T>{{cite journal |author=Anon |title=[Review:] Tolkien, J. R. R. ''Leaf by Niggle'' |journal=[[The Dublin Review]] |year=1945 |issue=January 1945 |page=216}}</ref> After discipline in [[Purgatory]], however, Niggle finds himself in the very landscape depicted by his painting which he is now able to finish with the assistance of a neighbour who obstructed him during life. The picture complete, Niggle is free to journey to the distant mountains which represent the highest stage of his spiritual development.<ref name="Dublin Leaf" group=T/> Thus, upon recovery from the wound inflicted by the Witch-King of Angmar on [[Weathertop]], [[Gandalf]] speculates that the hobbit Frodo "may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can".{{sfn|Kocher|1974|p=108}} Similarly, as Frodo nears [[Mount Doom]] he casts aside weapons and refuses to fight others with physical force: "For him struggles for the right must hereafter be waged only on the moral plane".{{sfn|Kocher|1974|p=108}}

=== Modern mediators ===

{{further|Anachronism in Middle-earth}}

[[File:Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee Clock Tower, Exmouth.jpg|thumb|Tolkien dated [[the Shire]] to the time of the [[Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria]], 1897, when [[Exmouth]]'s Jubilee clock was built.<ref name="Tolkien Jubilee" group=T/>]]

Tolkien scholars including Shippey and [[Dimitra Fimi]] have stated that the hobbits are misfits in Middle-earth's heroic cultures like [[Gondor]] and [[Rohan, Middle-earth|Rohan]]. Those have a basis in ancient societies such as [[ancient Rome]] and the [[Anglo-Saxons]].<ref name="Fimi 2010 Victorian"/> In contrast, Tolkien placed the Shire in a society he had personally experienced, "more or less a [[Warwickshire]] village of about the period of the [[Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria|Diamond Jubilee [of Queen Victoria, in 1897]]]".<ref name="Fimi 2010 Victorian">{{harvnb|Fimi|2010|loc=10 "Visualizing Middle-earth" "Victorian countryside and relics of the industrial revolution: the material culture of the Shire, pp. 179–188}}</ref><ref name="Tolkien Jubilee" group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#178 to [[Allen & Unwin]], 12 December 1955 }}</ref> Shippey described hobbit culture, complete with tobacco and potatoes,{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=47–48}} as a "creative anachronism" on Tolkien's part.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=74–80}} In his view, [[anachronism]] is the "essential function" of hobbits, enabling Tolkien to "bridge the gap" by mediating between readers' lives in the modern world and the dangerous ancient world of Middle-earth.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=47–48}} 

[[File:RoyalFireworks.jpg|thumb|[[Fireworks]] (England's [[Music for the Royal Fireworks|Royal Fireworks]] of 1749 pictured) are among the [[anachronistically]] modern material features of hobbits' lives.<ref name="Fimi 2010 Victorian"/>]]

Fimi comments that this applies both to the style of language used by hobbits, and to their [[material culture]] of "umbrellas, camping kettles, matches, clocks, pocket handkerchiefs and fireworks", all of which are plainly modern, as are the [[fish and chips]] that [[Sam Gamgee]] thinks of on his journey to [[Mordor]].<ref name="Fimi 2010 Victorian"/> Most striking, in her view, however, is Tolkien's description of the enormous dragon firework at Bilbo's party which rushed overhead "like an express train".<ref name="Fimi 2010 Victorian"/> Tolkien's drawing of the hall of Bilbo's home, [[Bag End]], shows both a clock and a [[barometer]] (mentioned in an early draft), and he had another clock on his [[mantelpiece]].{{sfn|Hammond|Scull|1995|p=146 "The Hall at Bag-End"}}<ref name="Roast Mutton" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1937|loc=Chapter 2. Roast Mutton. "If you had dusted the mantelpiece you would have found this just under the clock,' said Gandalf, handing Bilbo a note" [from Thorin].}}</ref><ref name="Tolkien barometer" group=T>[[J. R. R. Tolkien|Tolkien, J. R. R.]] [https://archive.org/stream/BilbosLastSongJ.R.R.Tolkien/The%20Return%20of%20the%20Shadow%20%28Not%20retail%29/The%20Return%20of%20the%20Shadow_%20The%20H%20-%20J.%20R.%20R.%20Tolkien_djvu.txt Bilbo's last Song]: (for "XIV. Return to Hobbiton" note 21) "the Hornblower who received the barometer now changes from Cosimo (by way of Carambo) to Colombo." (A Long-expected Party): "For Cosimo Chubb, treat it as your own, Bingo: on the barometer. Cosimo used to bang it with a large fat finger whenever he came to call. He was afraid of getting wet, and wore a scarf and macintosh all the year round."</ref> To arrange a party, hobbits rely on a daily [[postal service]].{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=5–6}} The effect, the scholars <!--Shippey, Fimi--> agree, is to bring the reader comfortably into the ancient heroic world.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|p=48}}<ref name="Fimi 2010 Victorian"/>

{| class="wikitable" 
|+ The Hobbits' "strikingly anachronistic" [[material culture]]<ref name="Fimi 2010 Victorian"/>{{sfn|Shippey|2001|p=48}}{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=5–6}}
|-
! Object !! First existed !! Notes 
|- 
| [[Tobacco]] || After 1492 || [[Columbian exchange]] brought it to Europe<ref name="Wills 2019">{{cite web |last1=Wills |first1=Matthew |title=The Columbian Exchange Should Be Called The Columbian Extraction |url=https://daily.jstor.org/columbian-exchange-columbian-extraction/ |publisher=[[JSTOR]] Daily |access-date=20 January 2024 |date=14 October 2019}}</ref>
|-
| [[Potato]] || After 1492 || As for tobacco<ref name="Wills 2019"/>
|-
| [[Umbrella]] || 18th century || Folding umbrellas, Paris<ref>{{cite book |last=Fierro |first=Alfred|title=Histoire et dictionnaire de Paris |year=1996 |publisher=Robert Laffont |isbn=2-221--07862-4 |page=1047}}</ref>
|-
| [[Camping]] kettle || After 1880s || Camping trips on [[River Thames]];<ref name="Wenham 2015">{{Cite journal |last=Wenham |first=Simon M. |url=https://www.oxoniensia.org/volumes/2015/Simon%20Wenham.pdf |title=The River Thames and the Popularisation of Camping, 1860–1980 |date=2015 |journal=[[Oxoniensia]] |volume=LXXX |pages=57–74}} {{open access}}</ref><br/>[[Kelly Kettle]] from end of 19th century<ref name="Turner 2015">{{cite web |last=Turner |first=Damian |title=Product Review - Ghillie Kettle |url=https://www.crossaxle.com/product-review-ghillie-kettle/ |publisher=Crossaxle.com Magazine |access-date=20 January 2024 |date=14 February 2015 |quote=The chimney or volcano kettle, call it what you will, dates back to the late 1800’s in western Ireland}}</ref>
|-
| [[Safety match]] || 1850s || [[Johan Edvard Lundström|Lundström brothers]], Sweden<ref>{{cite journal |last=Crass |first=M. F. Jr. |pages=316–319 |title=A history of the match industry. Part 5  |journal=Journal of Chemical Education |volume=18 |year=1941 |issue=7 |url=http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/issues/1941/Jul/jceSubscriber/JCE1941p0316.pdf |doi=10.1021/ed018p316 |bibcode=1941JChEd..18..316C }}</ref>
|-
| [[Clock]] || 13th century || [[History of timekeeping devices#13th century|First clocks]] in church towers<ref>{{cite book |last=White |first=Lynn Townsend |author-link=Lynn Townsend White Jr. |title=Medieval Technology and Social Change |date=1964 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-01950-0-266-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/medievaltechnolo00whit/page/n9/mode/2up?q=mainspring |url-access=registration |pages=120–121}}</ref>
|-
| [[Pocket handkerchief]] || 19th century || In pocket of [[two-piece suit]]<ref>{{cite web |title=The History Of The Pocket Square |url=https://www.rampleyandco.com/pages/the-history-of-the-pocket-square |publisher=Rampley & Co |access-date=20 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141201171025/https://www.rampleyandco.com/pages/the-history-of-the-pocket-square |archive-date=1 December 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
| [[Fireworks]] || 10th century || Made in Europe by 14th century<ref name="Griffiths 2017">{{Ullmann |author1=Griffiths, T. T. |author2=Krone, U. |author3=Lancaster, R. |title=Pyrotechnics |year=2017 |doi=10.1002/14356007.a22_437.pub2}}</ref>
|-
| [[Express train]] || 19th century || "certainly unimaginable in Middle-earth"<ref name="Fimi 2010 Victorian"/>
|-
| [[Fish and chips]] || 1860s || First fish and chip shops in England<ref name="Rayner 2005">{{cite news |last=Rayner |first=Jay |title=Enduring Love |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=3 November 2005 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/jan/19/foodanddrink.restaurants}}</ref>
|-
| [[Royal Mail|Postal service]] || 1840 || [[Uniform Penny Post]]<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Postal Services  |location=Bath |publisher=Postal Museum|url=http://brlsi.org/proceed04/lunch200404.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524151409/http://www.brlsi.org/proceed04/lunch200404.htm |archive-date=24 May 2011}}</ref>
|}