# In a hole in the ground?



## Beorn (Sep 5, 2003)

_In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit._

We all know that line. But, has anyone else considered any other meanings than the obvious? You haven't?! Do you live in a cave?!

Get my drift? Hobbits lived a very calm, peaceful life, and were perfectly contended to be concerned with their affairs, and not of others'. So, do you suppose the opening line to The Hobbit had more than one meaning? Hobbits lived in a hole in the ground literally and metaphorically.

Has anyone else thought of this? Do you suppose Tolkien meant this? What other meanings could the line have?

Mike


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## Turin (Sep 5, 2003)

Good insight, I would have never thought of that.


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## Kelonus (Sep 5, 2003)

Yes good insight, but it probably didnt have meaning. Or maybe...


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## Inderjit S (Sep 6, 2003)

Tolkien notes in a letter that he just wrote it down when marking exam papers, without really thinking about what he was writing.


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## Dragon (Sep 6, 2003)

that's a very good observation, but being as it was written for children, tolkien probably would not have used something like that and actually expected people to understand it...<--does taht make any sense?


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## robbie (Sep 7, 2003)

I never would of thought of it that way,of course it could have that meaning,but a even better phrase would be to say that hobbits "lived under a rock". but it could still be seen the other way too.


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## Hirila (Sep 7, 2003)

I'm almost sure that Tolkien didn't mean anything special by saying "In a hole in the ground , there lived a hobbit."

But if you think of it the way Beorn suggests we're all living in our privat holes. Why else would we build houses but in order to hide from the world outside. Our Houses are just like the holes and caves have been for our ancestors ages ago: a shelter from all the bad that lives outside. So that sentence applies to all of us: "In a house on the ground, there lived a man..."


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## Elfarmari (Sep 7, 2003)

In a letter to Tolkien (actually about the Lay of Leithian) C.S. Lewis wrote "The two things that come out clearly are the sense of reality in the background and the mythical value: *the essence of a myth being that it should have no taint of allegory ot the maker and yet should suggest incipient allegories to the reader.*"
I think this is just what Tolkien did with his works: he created a whole new mythology, inviting everyone who reads it to find infinite ways to re-interpret his work.


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## robbie (Sep 7, 2003)

I think that is the best way to look at all of tolkiens works Elfarmari. I do too believe that this is a whole mythology where we can beleieve what we want to get out of the stories,and thats a amazing thing.


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## ltas (Sep 8, 2003)

It seems that the possibilities to find allegories in Tolkien's are endless...

Actually, if a line like this is written down randomly during work, it can say a thing or two about the emotional condition of the writer on that moment... Mmm... he longs for comfort, warmth, safety and secureness?


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## robbie (Sep 8, 2003)

thats a very good thought too.


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## Aglarthalion (Sep 11, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Beorn _
> *So, do you suppose the opening line to The Hobbit had more than one meaning? Hobbits lived in a hole in the ground literally and metaphorically.*



You make a very interesting observation, Beorn. Now that I think about it, I agree that the classic opening line "_In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit." _ could very well have been intended by Tolkien to hold more than the obvious meaning. Hobbits are very much a creature who live close to the ground, at peace, in both a metaphorical and physical sense, and so it makes sense that the line could refer to both.

Then again, perhaps it is even possible that Tolkien himself did not think about the line in such a way as to symbolise the peaceful life of a Hobbit, but rather deliberately intended for the line to be interpretated in a multitude of ways. As other have said, the opening line is very much open to interpretation, and so it is possible that it holds vastly different meanings for different people.


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## baragund (Sep 14, 2003)

Given how much JRRT stressed in his biography and in his letters that The Hobbit was just a children's story and he seemed almost dismissive of deeper meanings to it when asked, my inclination is that he did not intend something complex like multiple meanings in a given passage.

What this line _really_ does well is create the setting. This line, along with the following paragraphs that describes Bilbo's hobbit hole, paints a picture in the mind's eye so vividly, you could just about be there yourself. 

If you haven't figured it out already, this opening passage is one of my favorite parts of the book... along with the description of Beorn's house (the one in the story, not the one on Long Island  ), the encounter with the trolls and the first description of the goblins.


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## Beorn (Sep 14, 2003)

> _Originally posted by baragund _
> (the one in the story, not the one on Long Island  )



WHAT? You don't think my house has a long hall, with a wooden table, and a small pasture outside for the animals?! 

It seems my suspicion has been utterly shot down.... Has no one else had a thought that has two meanings, and written it down?


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## baragund (Sep 14, 2003)

LOL! Beorn, no matter how smart they might have been, it would not be long before any animals frolicking around your house were roadkill on the LIE


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## Illuvatar (Dec 30, 2003)

Assuming that he did put allegories in the work, conciously or subconciously, this would probably not fall into the "allegory" category. "A hole in the ground" when used as an allegory, usually means the pits, the dregs, the worst of the worst. And Bilbo was definitely not living somewhere like that. He was living in the ideal place, with a respected name, and a rather healthy bank account. So no, I don't think that Bilbo lived in the metaphorical "hole in the ground" it was just describing his accomodations.


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## Beorn (Dec 30, 2003)

Illuvatar said:


> Assuming that he did put allegories in the work, conciously or subconciously, this would probably not fall into the "allegory" category. "A hole in the ground" when used as an allegory, usually means the pits, the dregs, the worst of the worst. And Bilbo was definitely not living somewhere like that. He was living in the ideal place, with a respected name, and a rather healthy bank account. So no, I don't think that Bilbo lived in the metaphorical "hole in the ground" it was just describing his accomodations.


That's a hole in the wall 

Back to my original idea: perhaps Tolkien saw the duality of his statement which he scribbled while grading, and expanded upon it?


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## Gandalf The Grey (Dec 30, 2003)

Stan McDaniel takes a fascinating look at exactly this topic in his essay "The Philosophical Etymology of Hobbit," which appears in its entirety at the following website:

Stan McDaniel's Hobbit Essay 

Long story short, McDaniel posits the eidophonetic relationship of the words "CAPUT" to "HEAD," and "Hobbit" to "Kuduk" as all having to do with what he envisions as "the sheltering curve."

McDaniel concludes, among other things:



> There are several confirmations of this birth-context in The Hobbit. One of them is the riddling answer Bilbo gives when Smaug the dragon asks, "Who are you, and where do you come from?" Bilbo says, "I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me." (13) The answer to this riddle is clearly something that develops within, and is born from, a womb.(14)
> 
> Thus the head represents the birth, identity, integrity, and growing-point of an individual being--that which curves upon itself, and so must be protected by curvature of various sorts, from the containing curve of the skin to caps, helmets, caves, houses, and hobbit-holes. I call this leading idea the idea of the Sheltering Curve. A hobbit-hole, dug into a hillside with arched ceilings, round doors, and round windows, protecting the hobbit or "head" within, is a paradigm instance of the Sheltering Curve.



And yes, as *Inderjit S* correctly points out, all this springing from an unconscious inspiration that occurred as the Good Professor was grading papers!


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## Barliman Butterbur (Jan 19, 2004)

Beorn said:


> _In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit._
> 
> We all know that line. But, has anyone else considered any other meanings than the obvious?
> 
> Mike



Not even Tolkien knew what it meant when he first wrote it.

Lotho


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