The Hobbit: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

There’s a noticeable contrast between the accommodating way Beorn treats Bilbo and the dwarves and the group’s uneasy experiences in the forest. The forest, with its darkness and lurking giant insects, is like the opposite of a home.

The enchanted hunt of deer is a familiar motif from early English and Celtic poetry, one with which Tolkien was extremely familiar from his academic studies. Here, the dwarves’ failure to use their weaponry effectively signals that they’re inadequately prepared for their quest, and that, for all his weaknesses, Bilbo might be a better adventurer than any of them. Where the dwarves rely on gut instinct and weaponry, Bilbo uses his ring, his trickery, and his words to survive on the open road.

There is something melancholy and deeply moving about the fact that the group is only a few feet away from sunshine and warmth—it’s just that these things are high above them, not around them. This situation is a metaphor for the dwarves’ larger situation: they know what their home is (the Lonely Mountain), but it is beyond their reach.

Bombur is almost a parody of Bilbo at his weakest—he dreams of food, he has to be carried, he contributes nothing to the group. This signals that Bilbo is no longer the “weak link” in the group; he’s beginning to prove his worth and earn his fourteenth of the treasure. Even so, he’s no more responsible than the dwarves when they run off the path.

Here, Bilbo participates in a crucial act of renaming. By giving a simple knife an impressive, evocative name, he makes himself more imposing and heroic—no common person could wield Sting. (It’s interesting that this moment comes on the heels of Tolkien’s descriptions of Orcrist and Glamdring, swords that do have an impressive history and legacy.) Language, then, is Bilbo’s most important tool: when he uses words to make himself appear more impressive, his statement becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and he does become more impressive. In naming his sword he gives it, and himself as its wielder, a legacy, and that legacy is connected to all other named swords.

Bilbo continues to use words to fight his enemies—his song accomplishes its intended purpose, confusing and maddening the spiders. Bilbo, it’s clear, has begun to enjoy his quest, and relish the battles with monsters instead of fearing them. It’s clear how quickly Bilbo has grown into a good adventurer by the way he saves the lives of the thirteen dwarves—who have much more experience than he does with adventures, after all. Bilbo also gains a new skill—old-fashioned sword fighting.

Bilbo no longer hides his secrets from the dwarves, and perhaps this is because he’s confident enough in his own abilities that he doesn’t think he needs to hide them any longer.

Bilbo’s reputation goes up enormously after he saves the dwarves’ lives: they pester him with questions, much the way they’ve pestered Gandalf for information in the past. Yet the dwarves aren’t exactly brilliant adventurers themselves—they lose Thorin without noticing.

Thorin’s behavior before the king is perfectly indicative of his personal strengths and weaknesses. Thorin has enough loyalty in his quest to the Lonely Mountain that he doesn’t reveal it to the king, and enough heroism to withstand any punishment. At the same time, he keeps his mouth shut when he could, presumably, apologize or be honest with the king and get a lighter sentence (or none at all). Yet Thorin wants his kingdom and all of its treasure for himself, and his refusal to divulge his goal is also a sign of his greed, and of his fear of the greed of others (which is itself a symptom of greed). At the same time, it is the long-standing conflict between dwarves and elves, not any individual conflict between Thorin and the Elvenking, that results in Thorin’s imprisonment. Separated from his companions, Thorin begins to lose some of his hope.