Difficulty with two characters in "The Hobbit", please help me out! =)

[chelsea_fresre]

Hi,

Could someone explain to me the relationship of Bilbo Baggins and Gollum? By that I mean some similarities and differences. This book would be so much more enjoyable if someone could help me out. Thanks alot!

-Chelsea

[papayahed]

Sounds like Homework.

[PeterL]

They are both Hobbits, solitary, not completely honest, and they both held the ring for substantial lengths of time.

[mtpspur]

One difference--Gollum became accursed from the ring, Bilbo largely escaped it.

[crisaor]

Man, trying to evade LotR-related homework???

A new low for humanity, I'm afraid.

[Orpheus]

Funny, I found the book to be enjoyable in and of itself. I certainly don't remember thinking, "if only I understood the similarities of these two characters, then and only then, would the book be worth reading." Good luck with your great assignment. I'm sure you'll survive.

[mayneverhave]

But the assignment has to over 2 pages!!

[Orionsbelt]

Well shouldn't be hard. Gollum (smeagel) and Bilbo come across the ring accidentally as innocents. The power of the ring (external subliminal influences) act on each with a different result. What element of the character in each are the same/different. One is kind of skitzoid, the other "divided" but not broken. Sounds fun to me. Hell you could bs for two pages.

[Niamh]

yeah but none of that is really known in the hobbit. It is told in LOTR. And seeing as this is Hobbit homework, it should just be based on their unfortunate meeting in the novel. But seeing as this is obviously homework, i'm not obliging.

[Shalot]

Check this link out:

http://www.tuckborough.net/gollum.html

It should give you some factiods to fill your paper with about Gollum and Bilbo. For starters, they're both Hobbits and both come from decent families - neither seems to suffer hardship prior to their contact with the ring. But, Gollum succombs to the evil of the ring, whereas Bilbo does not. Of course, you don't find that out just by reading the Hobbit - you would have to go on and read Lord of the Rings to know this. But for this assignment, you don't need to read LOTR but you will need to consult other sources and cite them in your paper. Of course, I don't know what grade level you're in or if you've covered bilbiographies and citing formats. Even if you haven't, there are a lot of Web sites out there for people who love LOTR and I am sure you can come up with two pages of material on the similarities and differences between Bilbo and Gollum. You could start your paper, with an intro about Gollum and Bilbo, two hobbits who each have possession of the ring and yet only one of them (Gollum) is completely ruined by the evil of the ring. Then you could just sort of wordily and creatively list their differences and similarities from the factoids contained in the web site I've linked and others you look up (or should look up).

In my opinion, the answer to this question is simply that Bilbo didn't have possession of the ring as long and that's why he didn't go insane like Smeagol (Gollum). Or maybe, Bilbo had some inherent characteristic or character trait that made more resiliant to evil. Or it could have been a combination of both.

I think I've given you a good start. I wish this was my assignment. This is just the kind of thing I would like to discuss. :D Oh, and don't plagarize. They will find it. (oh and one day you should read Lord of the Rings. It is much better than the Hobbit and it took me several tries to get through the Hobbit at first. I couldn't read it until I finished with Lord of the Rings and then i went back and read the Hobbit, so don't feel bad if you're not into it at first) :)

Good Luck!!