Q: Why is Middle-earth Segregated in The Hobbit?
ANSWER: The Hobbit doesn’t really segregate peoples so much as it presents a milieu of different cultures for Bilbo Baggins, the protagonist of the story, to pass through. Although Tolkien could have described the Hobbit’s world as being crowded with cosmopolitan cities, he originally composed the story to amuse his children in a fairy-tale setting. The traditional fairy-tale motif develops a plot in a simplistic environment. A family may live alone in the woods even though in historical practice families would have lived closed to friends and relatives.
Fairy-tale and mythology are filled with desolate landscapes, isolated peoples who are either threatened by great perils or who provide help and counsel to the adventurers who wander into their lands. The world of fairy-tale and legend does not closely resemble our own world because it emphasizes extreme situations in order to isolate and more fully develop ideas.
The Hobbit employs a gradual transition from relative comfort and safety (Bilbo’s homeland) to a hellish landscape where death awaits behind every rock (the desolation of Smaug). The story introduces occasional perils (the trolls, the goblins, the spiders of Mirkwood) that increasingly challenge Bilbo and demonstrate that he moving deeper into wild and ever more perilous lands. But Bilbo and his companions cannot fulfill their purpose without help; hence, at each step of the way they are aided by unlooked-for allies (Gandalf versus the trolls, the Eagles and Beorn versus the goblins, the Elves versus Mirkwood, and the Men of Laketown versus Smaug).
Not all of the help is offered in a friendly and wise fashion. Beorn gives Thorin and his companions food and advice but he follows them to make sure they return his ponies. The Elves of Mirkwood don’t intentionally help the Dwarves but end up doing so anyway by leading them east away from the spiders and by feeding them even while holding the Dwarves prisoner. The Men of Laketown generously befriend and help the Dwarves more out of naivete and superstition but nonetheless prove to be capable allies when Bard slays Smaug.
The conflicts between the Dwarves and their neighbors (Elves and Men) resemble natural conflicts between neighboring tribes or kingdoms. As Thorin and his people re-establish themselves in the Lonely Mountain they must learn to get along with their neighbors. The Battle of Five Armies helps to defuse the differences between the “good” peoples, all of whom have their faults as well as their virtues.
In one sense, The Hobbit tells the story of how Bilbo helps to tame the wild lands and bring several disparate peoples together in a time of great crisis. In a much broader sense, the story simply follows Bilbo as he learns about the wonders and perils of the wide world beyond his own little safe homeland. The reader does not learn much about the politics and attitudes of the various peoples in a historical context, except to see that they all accept friendship and move forward in peace and mutual trust.
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