How Bilbo and Thorin Developed Throughout the Story of The Hobbit

Throughout our third and fourth quarter we read the story of the hobbit, some pages we
read in class but mostly we read alone at home. Along the way we discussed the
important parts of every chapter in the story and answered questions about each
chapter. In Addition we discussed a few topics such as Anthropomorphism, and the
hero’s journey which we connected to the story of the hobbit. The story is about a small
hobbit named “Bilbo”, a lazy hobbit living an ordinary life in his hobbit hole, but one day
this hobbit was forced to embark on a dangerous journey by a wizard called Gandalf
with the dwarves to retrieve their treasure from the dragon Smaug. Throughout the story
the Hobbit faces many hardships and tests that he was able to learn from, and gained
courage, friendship, wisdom and many other things. In this essay, I’m going to explain
and discuss the development of Bilbo and Thorin through the story.

Bilbo is the main protagonist of this story who had the role of a burglar in the journey,
while Thorin was the most important dwarve out of all the other dwarves that went to the
dangerous adventure along with Bilbo. I believe that Bilbo was able to develop thanks to
his Tookish self that wanted to prove that he is capable of becoming a burglar, and that
is what pushed him to join their journey. I also believe that the tests, allies, and enemies
he faced throughout the journey have helped Bilbo change into a better person, as for
Thorin I believe that he was mainly able to change because of Bilbo’s developments.
There are many moments that show the development of Bilbo, firstly in the beginning of
the story Bilbo was a coward and a lazy person who would prefer to stay at home rather
than go on a journey, as we read in chapter 1 Bilbo fainted merely by hearing that they
might not survive the adventure, but in chapter 2, Bilbo who didn’t want to go through
the adventure, ended up going to the adventure, where they met their first enemies,
which were the trolls, and Bilbo mustered courage to steal the troll wallet in order to
prove that he is capable of becoming a burglar, but unfortunately he failed. This moment
shows that Bilbo became more courageous, and instead of being lazy through the
adventure the Hobbit tried to prove to himself that he is useful to the dwarves, even
though he failed. The second moment was in chapter 5 when he got separated from the
dwarves and Gandalf in the goblins dungeon, and he decided to do the opposite of what
he used to do before, which is moving forward instead of going back, and ended up
bravely facing Gollum (a slimy creature, who wanted to eat Bilbo), and proved to the
dwarves that he was capable of saving himself when he escaped from Gollum and the
goblins dungeon. The third moment
occurred in chapter 8, when Bilbo ended up killing a giant spider by himself instead of
being scared, he also saved the dwarves all by himself from the giant spiders that
wanted to eat them, and proved himself useful to the dwarves, as well as he acted as a
leader to the dwarves and helped them escape to safety. Finally the fourth moment is in
chapter 9, when he saved and freed the dwarves from the wood elves using a plan he
came up with. These four moments show Bilbo’s courageous and leadership traits, as
Bilbo faced many enemies with his courage and was able to lead and guide the
dwarves in the last 2 moments. Thorin also developed a lot, at the beginning of the story
he was considered the leader of the dwarves, he also considered himself better than the
other dwarves, and was arrogant because he has royal blood, in addition he thought
that Bilbo was useless and untrustworthy and didn’t respect him, but mocked him
politely. One of the moments that shows the development of Thorin was in chapter 2
when Thorin decided to give Bilbo the role of checking out the light that appeared in the
mountains along their journey, and that shows that even though he didn’t trust him he
still gave him some roles. Furthermore in chapter 2 he also fights the trolls and ends up
injuring two of them, which shows us how strong and brave Thorin is. Another moment
was In chapter 8 when Thorin got captured by the wood elves and he didn’t even bother
fighting back, but he didn’t reveal the secret of their adventure and the dwarves, this
shows that Thorin was loyal to the dwarves. Chapter 9 also showed another
development, which was when Thorin was about to lose all hope but then Bilbo showed
up, and he thought of Bilbo as his last hope, this shows that he trusts Bilbo now. In
Addition when Thorin was saved by Bilbo he gave compliments to Bilbo and he said that
he is at his service, and respected Bilbo. Lastly in Chapter 10 Thorin, even though tired
and bruised, listened to Bilbo and helped him with freeing the other dwarves, which
shows that he now considers the hobbit as the leader. These moments show some of
Thorin's character traits, one of them is arrogance which was displayed in chapter 1,
when he didn’t say ”I am at your service”, to the hobbit like the other dwarves. Another
trait is courage, which he displayed when he fought the trolls, and other enemies
through the adventure.

In my essay I wrote about the story of the hobbit where I described and showed the
development of Bilbo and Thorin throughout the story. I think it is important that
everyone develops in life by learning from their mistakes to work on fixing them and to
not repeat them, in order to move forward to a better life. We can learn from this story to
be more courageous and think about others like Bilbo did. Finally I enjoyed reading this
story because it was interesting to see how Bilbo changes for the better and gives you
courage to become more like Bilbo, also I liked the narrator's language, and the
foreshadowing the narrator gave us.