The Hobbit's Constant Struggle

 Author's Note: This piece is talking about the theme of J.R.R. Tolkien's  The Hobbit.  This is for my reading score.

Trolls, goblins, elves, dwarves, everything The Lord of the Rings trilogy has, The Hobbit has as well.  The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien's prelude to The Lord of the Rings, is about a hobbit that goes on a long journey with thirteen dwarves to kill a dragon and win gold.  Things don't go as planned and the caravan ends up falling off their path several times before they reach the dragon's lair.  I broke down the book and discovered that there were basically eight main struggles that the characters had to get through.  Due to the fact that there were so many obstacles, I believe that the theme of The Hobbit is constant struggle.

Goblins, being the nasty creatures that they are, were one of the struggles that the group had to get through.  They faced the goblins thrice; in the goblin's tunnels, in the forest when they joined forces with the wargs, and again with the wargs in the valley.   They also had to fight the spiders in the forest of  Mirkwood.  The troop fought all these creatures to get to their main enemy, Smaug the dragon.  Ironically, after all that,  they didn't even get to kill him; a lake-man ended up killing him!

Although there was many a good sword fight in this book, a lot of the struggles were mental ones that depended on knowledge and cleverness.   The first struggle happened before Bilbo even left his hobbit-hole.  For, the first struggle happened within Bilbo as the "Took half" of him battled the "Baggins half".   Gandalf had his turn to show his knowledge as well when he kept the trolls fighting until sunlight came and turned them to stone.  In the goblin tunnels, another obstacle appeared and Bilbo had a riddle-game with Gollum to decide whether or not Bilbo lived.  He won, though it was mostly because of luck. 

  Though Mr.Tolkien may argue for a different theme, I would still vouch for constant struggle. Always fight for what you believe in and as long as you have proof to support your opinion, who's to tell you you're wrong?