# Who is narrating the hobbit?



## morello13 (Dec 20, 2002)

I've been through the sil, and LotR. Who's point of view is the hobbit narrated in?
thanks
J>


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## Celebthôl (Dec 20, 2002)

well simple answer is the readers!


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## Manwë Súlimo (Dec 20, 2002)

It is supposed to be Tolkien telling the story. It is best if you view The Hobbit as a childrens story read around a fire, and Tolkien reading it to a group of children.


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## Aglarthalion (Dec 23, 2002)

Tolkien himself is the narrator of the Hobbit. As evidenced (although there are numerous examples) by A) The first paragraph in Chapter 14, "Fire and Water", and B) The first sentence of Chapter 15, "The Gathering of the Clouds":

A) _Now if you wish, like the dwarves, to hear news of Smaug, you must go back again to the evening when he smashed the door and flew off in rage, two days before._

B) _Now we will return to Bilbo and the dwarves._

Regards,

Aglarthalion Ainagil


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## gandalfthegreat (Dec 25, 2002)

*Most Definitely*

I believe most definitely that Tolkien is the narrator, he is telling this story to the inner child inside all of us that wants so badly to become part of the story and somehow become entangled in the same mishaps Bilbo finds himself in. Everyone finds a character in the Hobbit, and the LoTR to relate with, someone they could see theirselves being.


-Gandalf-


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## Chymaera (Jan 1, 2003)

Sam, as custodian of the Red Book and the Tranlations of Elvish, is the Narrator and he is reading to Elanor and Frodo-lad.


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## gandalfthegreat (Jan 3, 2003)

TOLKIEN

-*Gandalf-*


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## Isenho (Jan 5, 2003)

yeah it's Tolkien, at first i thought it was Bilbo! yeah, pretty stupid


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## Glamdring (Jan 6, 2003)

I thought the Hobbit was supposed to be the book that Bilbo wrote (there and back again). I wonder why Bilbo wrote the book from a third-person perspective, as opposed to a firt-person, which would be more appropriate for that type of book.


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## Aglarthalion (Jan 8, 2003)

Well, maybe Bilbo thought it would read better and sound more like a classic tale if he wrote it in third person. If he wrote it in first person, it would not sound like a story, but rather a recount of the events. And being in third person allows the book to be more impersonal, and as such more free-flowing, in my opinion.


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## Ecthelion (Jan 17, 2003)

Maybe Bilbo wrote two different editions of There and Back Again. I could always see him telling to tiny wee-hobbbits.


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## jallan (Jan 18, 2003)

From Tolkien's introduction to the first edition of _The Fellowship of the Ring_, concerning the narrative of _The Lord of the Rings_:


> I have in this tale adhered more closely to the actual words and narrative of my original than in the previous selection from the Red Book, _The Hobbit_. That was drawn from the early chapters, composed originally by Bilbo himself. If “composed by” is a just word. Bilbo was not assiduous, nor an orderly narrator, and his account is involved and discursive, and sometimes confused: faults that still appear in the Red Book, since the copiers were pious and careful, and altered very little.


So _The Hobbit_ is supposedly J.R.R. Tolkien's retelling of Bilbo Baggins’ narrative.


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