LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 01 - A Long-Expected Party
Fingolfin II wrote:
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with just a hint of darker things
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Squatter wrote:
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However, the gentle comedy masks a tension that Tolkien begins to build right at the beginning of the chapter.
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*Varda* wrote:
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Tolkien again drops hints of darker things to come
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I saw several hints of darker things (subtle unless one is looking, perhaps.) Drownings. The Old Forest. Dangerous boats. Elves and Dragons… don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters or you’ll land in trouble too big for you. And (Gandalf’s) real business was more difficult and dangerous.
Fordim wrote:
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Gollum would never have given away his birthday present but kept it for himself; Bilbo, because he's a hobbit, does give away birthday presents, and does manage -- after a struggle -- to give away this one too.
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Frodo is the only one of the three who actually DID receive it as a Birthday Present! He could honestly call it that! (And wouldn't it be eerie...) Not just birthday, but Coming-Of-Age birthday present... and an inheritance... what a way to recieve your Life-Changing Doom...
Fordim: about the Foreshadowing-- just *wow*. I took a break after reading your post just to let it sink in. Bilbo vanishes from the party; then leaving Bag-End, rather light-heartedly, happy with his three companions, he foreshadows Frodo's route westward and over the gap in the hedge; he melts into the twilight, dwarf-hooded and dwarf-cloaked (a foreign cloak again, dark green but so stained and patched it must be practically camo, blending perfectly into the woods) and Gandalf watches him go. .... Then Frodo watches Gandalf go, bent and burdened....
I also saw a very divided Frodo from my first introduction to him here.
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He had difficulty keeping from laughter at the indignant surprise of the guests. But at the same time he felt deeply troubled: he realized suddenly that he loved the old hobbit dearly.
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”I wish—I mean, I hoped until this evening that it was only a joke,” said Frodo. “But I knew in my heart that he really meant to go.”
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Frodo was waiting on the step, smiling, but looking rather tired and worried.
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He looked indisposed—to see Sackville-Bagginses, at any rate; and he stood up, fidgeting with something in his pocket. But he spoke quite politely.
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…if I could get Bilbo back and go off tramping in the country with him. I love the Shire. But I begin to wish, somehow, that I had gone too.”
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All this foreshadows the torn Frodo we see as the quest continues, and makes his statement to Sam all the more poignant: “You cannot be always torn in two. You were meant to be one and whole”-- although Frodo was torn in two from the time Bilbo disappeared from under the Party Tree.