Tolkien and Tiny But Mature Children

[Child of the 7th Age]

Helen,

I think you've raised a question that's not easy to answer. I've thought about this for some time in relation to hobbits (though not Elves), but can't seem to latch onto anything clearly.

There is, of course, the point that Davem raises: hobbits were imported from his earlier book, and this is where some of the childlike qualities were first seen. But can we take it further than this?

Aren't there really two factors you have to deal with in relation to this question? There is the fact that both Hobbits and Elves had a "longer" childhood than Man is normally used to, at least in our world. Then there is the separate reality that hobbits as a whole, even adult ones, are often portrayed in a childlike manner.

The long childhood of Elves and Hobbits could certainly be tied to the fact that they live longer lives -- in the case of the Elves much longer. I believe someone once did a calculation in the geneologies and deduced that the "average" Hobbit died at about 92 years of age. That would mean, however, that Hobbits were regarded as 'below their majority' (i.e. 33 years of age) for a full one-third of their life. I suppose one could say that most "children" in our society don't become adults until they finish college and get a job! If that is the case, given the fact that human lifespan isn't yet quite as long as hobbits, then humans are also children for nearly a third of their life!

Regarding the other part of the question, the depiction of even adult hobbits as childlike beings.....I always felt this tied in with one of Tolkien's central themes: the ennoblement of the small and simple, and the impact that such beings may have on the way the wheels of the world turn:

But as the earliest Tales are seen through Elvish eyes, as it were, this last great Tale, coming down from myth and legend to the earth, is mainly seen through the eyes of Hobbits: it thus becomes in fact anthropocentric. But through Hobbits, not Men so-called because the last tale is to exemplify most clearly a recurrent theme: the place in 'world politics' of the unforeseen and unforseeable acts of will, and deeds of virtue of the apparently small, ungreat, forgotten in the places of the Wise and Great (good as well as evil). A moral of the whole ...is the obvious one that without the high and noble, the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless.

I read the Hobbit's childlike nature as part of this equation: the simple, forgotten ones who come out of nowhere to help determine the course of things.

How this ties into the question of Elf-children, I'm not sure!

It is interesting to note that the one group of people who put great emphasis on Tolkien's "childlike" characters were precisely the critics who hated the books the most! We've had other threads where this was discussed. These critics complained LotR was a school boy story with androgynous characters. Those folk who like the book generally don't discuss what it means to have lengthened childhood, or childlike characters, although perhaps they should.

The other obvious question then is whether Tolkien was trying to make a comment on the nature of Man by portraying Hobbits and Elves in this manner. It's clear from the Letters that Tolkien saw Hobbits, Elves, etc. as exemplifying different aspects of Man. Here is one example...

Of course in reality this only means that my 'elves' are only a representation of an apprehension of a part of human nature, but that is not the legendary mode of talking.

So perhaps we can somehow extrapolate that Tolkien was trying to tell us something about ourselves by portraying his chracters in this way.

Have to run to work, but will mull this over.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 1:15 PM January 29, 2004: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]