Bilbo Character Essay

Tolkien scholar Corey Olsen states, “The complex set of changes that Bilbo’s character undergoes will be one of the central and most intricate stories of the entire book.” Perhaps though the utmost significant set of changes that Bilbo undertakes in regards to his role as the burglar. At the beginning of the story Bilbo is extremely reluctant to join in on the adventure, in his first encounter with Gandalf he attempts to send him away almost immediately. After inviting Gandalf to have a pipe with him and discovering his proposal for an adventure he says “’We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,’” (6) showing his almost instant …show more content…
As the story progresses Bilbo slowly starts to ease further into the role of being the burglar and what that means for him. His initial attempt at testing the waters of being a burglar when sent to spy on the trolls. He contemplates about robbing the trolls and killing them, but “He was very much alarmed, as well as disgusted; he wished himself a hundred miles away, and yet – and yet somehow he could not go straight back to Thorin and Company empty handed”(33). Bilbo is repulsed at his gut reaction to rob the trolls, but still feels compelled to do so as the burglar for the company and there’s no other way to validate himself as a burglar. With his newly discovered confidence Bilbo starts to blossom into the burglar Gandalf recognized he could be. Bilbo manages to aid the dwarves out of several sticky situations, but conceivably the epitome of Bilbo being a burglar is when he steals the Arkenstone from under the dwarves noses, and Bilbo recognizes this himself. “’Now I am a burglar indeed!’ thought he. ‘But I suppose I must tell the dwarves about it – some time’”