Hey guys! I had a great time at Saturday’s meeting of the Medievalists and Early Modernists of North Texas and Oklahoma. Here’s the paper I presented, edited for length. (The full paper is about twice as long, but all the important parts are here.)
One of the most important literary elements is the character known as the hero—an individual, whether ordinary or extraordinary, who is inspired or compelled to undertake some sort of assignment. This hero interacts with friends and enemies, overcomes trials, and eventually receives a reward before returning to their original world. The typical literary hero’s actions are so constant across stories, eras, and cultures that a framework, now known as The Hero’s Journey, was developed to explain and describe them. Two examples of traditional folktales have been selected for study: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and the anonymous 14th-century Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. An examination of the differences between these two works insofar as The Hero’s Journey is concerned will show how the plot of traditional folktales, as well as the heroes that engage in the events of the plot, have changed since the medieval era.
The Hero’s Journey was developed and popularized by Joseph Campbell in his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, after Campbell and his predecessors realized that many traditional myths from various cultures have similar plot elements and Jungian character archetypes. The seventeen steps of the Hero’s Journey were revisited in 2007 by Christopher Vogler, who shortened the Journey into twelve steps. The ideas of both Campbell and Vogler will be applied to The Hobbit and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in a summarized form provided by authors Basarici and Kilicaslan.
According to Vogler, the first step of the Hero’s Journey is the introduction of the Ordinary World. This establishes the cultural norms from which the hero is operating. Tolkien states that Bilbo and his family are “very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected.” The author of Sir Gawain details the Christmas feasts and athletic games of King Arthur and his court.
The next two steps are identical in both Campbell’s and Vogler’s versions: The Call to Adventure and the Refusal of the Call. In The Hobbit, Bilbo is surprised by a visit from the wizard Gandalf, who invites him on an adventure; Bilbo immediately refuses the offer. Sir Gawain, similarly, is surprised by the arrival of the titular Green Knight. The Green Knight “[asks] of the court a Christmas game” and is initially met with silence. When Arthur prepares to deal the first blow to the Green Knight, Gawain suddenly volunteers for the challenge. His reasoning is his own dispensability: he says, “I am the weakest of [Arthur’s court], I know, and the dullest-minded, / So my death would be least loss… / No virtue I know in myself but [Arthur’s] blood”.
The next step is called “Crossing the Threshold”, in which the hero “leaves the known world behind him/her and enters the unknown world of the adventure” according to Basarici and Kilicaslan. Gawain crosses the threshold to adventure when he accepts the Green Knight’s challenge and beheads him. Bilbo, on the other hand, crosses a literal threshold when he leaves his house at Gandalf’s behest.
By this point in the texts, the difference between Bilbo and Gawain is apparent. Gawain is a one-dimensional character, the embodiment of courtly virtue. It is this virtue and sense of honor that compel Gawain to undertake the rest of the Hero’s Journey. Bilbo, on the other hand, is a round character. He is not particularly virtuous and suffers a great deal of internal conflict.
Why did Tolkien, a lifelong student of myths and their associated archetypes, write Bilbo as a flawed character rather than the traditional perfect hero? Modern readers have come to expect characters who are complex and imperfect; a paragon of virtue would be deemed boring and unrealistic. In fact, it can be argued that truly archetypical heroes such as Gawain, according to author Sullivan, “are not acceptable any more”. A growing trend in modern media is the inclusion of an antihero—a character who, despite frequently engaging in the types of immoral activities that typically characterize a villain, is designed to be sympathized with and related to. As Sullivan notes, “the modern version of Beowulf is John Gardener’s novel Grendel”
Campbell’s next four steps—“The Road of Trials,” “The Meeting with the Goddess,” “Woman as Temptress,” and “Atonement with the Father” are combined and summarized in Vogler’s “Tests, Allies, and Enemies”. In The Hobbit, The Road of Trials makes up the majority of the book. By comparison, Gawain’s journey is relatively glossed over.
The Meeting with the Goddess is completely ignored in The Hobbit, which does not feature a single female character. On the other hand, just as the bulk of The Hobbit is spent focusing on The Road of Trials, so is a large portion of Sir Gawain dedicated to the description of Lady Hautdesert’s attempted seduction of Gawain and the good knight’s refusal of her advances.
According to Basarici and Kilicaslan, Woman as Temptress represents all of the hero’s “carnal desires,” not necessarily lust. Bilbo is tempted by the precious Arkenstone gem. He keeps it for himself, even when the dwarf leader Thorin threatens to kill anyone found in possession of it. Gawain, too, succumbs to his greed when Lady Hautedesert offers him a belt that will protect him from wounds in battle. Gawain, knowing that he is about to be killed by the Green Knight, accepts the lady’s offer.
Just as the previous steps in Campbell’s edition of The Hero’s Journey are summarized by Vogler, so are Vogler’s next steps—“Approach to the Innermost Cave,” “The Ordeal,” and “Reward”—summarized by Campbell’s “Apotheosis” and “The Ultimate Boon.” Approach to the Innermost Cave details suspense and terror. It describes Bilbo entering the Lonely Mountain and conversing with the great dragon Smaug. It describes Gawain as he approaches the Green Chapel, where he is to meet the Green Knight and presumably his own death. The Ordeal in Sir Gawain involves the Green Knight preparing to decapitate Gawain and eventually revealing himself to be Lord Hautdesert, who is merely testing Arthur’s court. The Reward is Gawain’s life and virtue.
The Ordeal is a bit more difficult to define in The Hobbit. It could be taken to describe the death of Smaug at the hands of a heroic townsman named Bard, or, more likely, the climactic Battle of the Five Armies. Interestingly enough, Bilbo plays a very small role in both of these events. An explanation for this is found in the fact that “Tolkien…split the hero” (according to Sullivan). While Bilbo has been the hero up to this point in the book, the typical heroic actions of slaying the dragon and becoming king are undertaken by a townsman named Bard.
Similarly, the Reward in The Hobbit can be taken to mean several things. The dwarves win back their mountain treasures, but to Bilbo, the greatest reward of all is the opportunity to return to his idyllic home. The dying Thorin best summarizes Tolkien’s intended moral: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
This, however, raises an interesting contrast: while Sir Gawain emphasizes the value of questing, valor, and adventure, The Hobbit promotes simplicity and contentment. There are two possible explanations for Tolkien’s departure from this traditional standard. First, Tolkien was a great student of Norse sagas and early Icelandic literature. Scholars such as Sullivan have noted that “the sagas reflect the values of Icelandic society at large” whereas warrior epics such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight “reflect the values of a warrior class”. It is possible that Tolkien was attempting to blend these two genres in The Hobbit by having his protagonist undergo trials typical of knightly tales while simultaneously promoting civilian values. Secondly, it must also be remembered that Tolkien lived through both World Wars and was writing for children. He might have purposefully emphasized the domestic as opposed to the adventurous in an effort to counter the pro-war propaganda that the children of his era were exposed to.
Campbell’s “The Crossing of the Return Threshold” is synonymous with Vogler’s “The Resurrection”; which details the hero’s return to their Ordinary World. It is Campbell’s sixteenth step and Vogler’s last step that ends both Sir Gawain and The Hobbit. This step details the ways in which the hero was changed by their journey. Bilbo ends the story a bit wealthier than he had once been and concludes the book by expressing gratitude that he is “only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all.” Sir Gawain ends with the titular hero returning home, blaming himself for “cowardice and covetousness” for having taken Lady Hautdesert’s girdle, and receiving the forgiveness and praise of King Arthur and the rest of the court.
In conclusion, while the original readers of Sir Gawain might have appreciated the valor displayed by the titular hero and viewed him as a role model, the audience of The Hobbit expected and received a flawed, three-dimensional, relatable hero. Bilbo’s flaws do not make him less of a hero. In fact, a reader might be more inspired by the ways in which Bilbo overcame his fears and shortcomings than by Gawain’s perfection. Both of these heroes have completed their journey and earned their reward; let their stories now inspire readers for generations to come.
Basarici, Samsun, and Yilmaz Kilicaslan. “Hero’s Journey as a Lattice Structure: A Case Study of Star Wars.” Journal of Balkan Libraries Union, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 17-23. http://eprints.rclis.org/39354/1/Makale 3.pdf. Accessed 7 Apr. 2021.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Medieval Period. Ed. Joseph Black et al. Vol 1. 3rd ed. Broadview Press, 2015.
Sullivan, C.W. “J.R.R. Tolkien and the Telling of a Traditional Narrative.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 7, no. 1 (25), 1996, pp. 75–82. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43308257. Accessed 8 Apr. 2021.