Editing Lonely Mountain (section)

== Analysis ==

=== Goal of psychological quest ===

{{further|Psychological journeys of Middle-earth}}

The [[Jungian psychoanalysis|Jungian psychoanalyst]] Dorothy Matthews, [[Psychological journeys of Middle-earth|viewing ''The Hobbit'' as a psychological quest]], writes that the Lonely Mountain is an apt symbol of Bilbo's [[individuation|maturation as an individual]], as the place where he takes on a leadership role and acts and makes decisions independently.<ref name="Matthews 1975">{{cite book |last=Matthews |first=Dorothy |editor-last=Lobdell |editor-first=Jared |editor-link=Jared Lobdell |chapter=The Psychological Journey of Bilbo Baggins |title=[[A Tolkien Compass]] |date=1975 |publisher=[[Open Court Publishing Company|Open Court]] |isbn=978-0875483030 |page=39}}</ref> The Tolkien scholar [[Jared Lobdell]] comments that he is "profoundly unsympathetic" to Matthews's approach, but that she "carries it off well". Lobdell explains, citing [[C. S. Lewis]]'s essay "Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism", that many different stories could, for instance, have the same [[Freudian]] interpretation, but be quite different as literature. He remarks on the other hand that a [[psychoanalytic]] approach is at least richer than a purely [[Materialism|materialistic]] one.<ref name="Lobdell 1975">{{cite book |last=Lobdell |first=Jared |editor-last=Lobdell |editor-first=Jared |editor-link=Jared Lobdell |chapter=Introduction |title=[[A Tolkien Compass]] |date=1975 |publisher=[[Open Court Publishing Company|Open Court]] |isbn=978-0875483030 |page=3}}</ref>

The scholar of children's literature William H. Green calls the Lonely Mountain the fourth and final stage of Bilbo's education. He identifies multiple parallels and repetitions of structure between the stages, each one involving a journey, privation, and "unlikely escape". The Lonely Mountain stage, too, symbolically echoes the first stage in [[the Shire]]: before setting out, Bilbo was peacefully smoking a pipe of tobacco at his own front door; at the mountain, the smoke is the dragon's, and its meaning is anything but peaceful.<ref name="Green 1980">{{cite journal |last=Green |first=William H. | title=The Four-Part Structure of Bilbo's Education |journal=[[Children's Literature (journal)|Children's Literature]] |publisher=[[Project Muse]] |volume=8 |issue=1 |year=1980 |issn=1543-3374 |doi=10.1353/chl.0.0634 |pages=133–140}}</ref> The Christian writer [[Joseph Pearce]] views the journey to the Lonely Mountain as a "pilgrimage of grace", a Christian ''[[bildungsroman]]'', at its deepest level. Pearce states further that [[Quests in Middle-earth|Bilbo's quest]] to the mountain parallels [[Frodo Baggins|Frodo]]'s quest to a different mountain, [[Mount Doom]],  which he calls "a mirror of Everyman's journey through life".<ref name="Pearce2012">{{cite book |last=Pearce |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Pearce |title=Bilbo's Journey: Discovering the Hidden Meaning of the Hobbit |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mBSsCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT7 |year=2012 |publisher=TAN Books |isbn=978-1-61890-122-4 |at=Chapter 1}}</ref>

Two scholars of literature, [[Paul H. Kocher|Paul Kocher]] and [[Randel Helms]] analyse Bilbo's journey to the lonely mountain, describing it as the goal of his quest and the point at which it is achieved. Both compare the quest in ''The Hobbit'' with that of ''The Lord of the Rings'', noting that the two novels, for all their differences including the reason for the quests, are structurally similar.<ref name="Kocher 1974">{{cite book |last=Kocher |first=Paul |author-link=Paul H. Kocher |title=Master of Middle-earth, the Achievement of J. R. R. Tolkien |title-link=Master of Middle-Earth |year=1974 |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |pages=31–32}}</ref><ref name="Helms 1974">{{cite book |last=Helms |first=Randel |author-link=Randel Helms |title=Tolkien's World |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin]] |location=Boston |year=1974 |isbn=0-395-18490-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/tolkiensworld00helm |pages=21–22}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto;"
|+  [[Randel Helms]]'s analysis of quest structure in ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''<ref name="Helms 1974"/>
|- 
! Event !! ''The Hobbit'' !! ''The Lord of the Rings''
|-
| Start 
| colspan=2 style="text-align: center;" | From [[Bag End]] in [[the Shire]] 
|-
| End of 1st phase || Trip down River Running, nearing [[Erebor]] || Trip down [[River Anduin]], nearing [[Mordor]]
|-
| Approaching the goal || Cross the dragon's withered hearth || Cross the evil polluted plain of [[Gorgoroth (Middle-earth)|Gorgoroth]]
|-
| Achieving the quest || Enter hole in side of the Lonely Mountain || Enter hole in side of [[Mount Doom]]
|-
| Success marked by
| colspan=2 style="text-align: center;" | Arrival of [[Eagles in Middle-earth|Great Eagles]]
|- 
| Returning home || Have to stop auction of Bag End || Have to [[The Scouring of the Shire|scour the Shire]] of [[Saruman|Sharkey's]] evil
|}

=== Gain and loss ===

The Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] notes that in ''The Hobbit'', the lonely mountain is a symbol of adventure, and the "true end" of the story is the moment when Bilbo looks back from a high pass and sees "There far away was the Lonely Mountain on the edge of eyesight. On its highest peak snow yet unmelted was gleaming pale. 'So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending!' said Bilbo, and he turned his back on his adventure."<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1937}}, ch. 18 "The Return Journey"</ref><ref name="Shippey 2005">{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Shippey |title=[[The Road to Middle-Earth]] |date=2005 |edition=Third |orig-year=1982 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0261102750 |pages=105–106}}</ref>

Amelia Harper, in the ''[[J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia]]'', writes that the mountain's history, as usual for the Dwarves, was a tale of "beauty gained and lives lost".<ref name="Harper 2006"/>