Through them, Tolkien presents a simple way of life.

The Shire and its residents represent a pastoral ideal, an agricultural society reminiscent of England's Victorian past. To gain better insight into Tolkien's characterization of the hobbits, we must turn to the author himself. He was raised by his mother in a rural community in Sarehol, near Birmingham, a piece of English countryside filled with bogs, forests, a pastoral landscape that would serve as the backdrop for the Shire.

Tolkien's hobbits challenge our notions of the good life and invite us to consider living simply in an age of unprecedented excess. Even amidst a pandemic we still enjoy unprecedented excess in comparison with our brothers and sisters around the world. In an age of overabundance, while many of us living in the West do not possess the overabundant resources of the wealthy, we are still trained to desire what the wealthy possess. Those of us living in the 21st century, have much to learn from hobbits. They exist in stark contrast to the rapid industrialization of the 20th century and the excess that followed in its wake. The hobbits and their homeland, The Shire, serve as a polemic in Tolkien's literary work. They are comical and small and wholly insignificant to the great powers at work in Middle Earth. They possess no great warriors in their ranks (unless you count Bullroarer Took).

Tolkien described his creations as 'an unobtrusive but very ancient people … they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favorite haunt.' Unlike the heroes of stories past, hobbits are not creatures of renown. With a swift stroke of his pen, Tolkien introduced one of the most unlikely heroes to the canon of English fantasy fiction - the hobbit. Great tales were no longer reserved for the wise and mighty. Tolkien changed the landscape of English literature. 'In a hole in a ground there lived a hobbit.' With that one line, J.R.R.

Lord of the rings ages