Student Question

What are some similes in J. R. R. Tolkein's The Hobbit?

Quick answer:

In The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien uses similes to create vivid imagery. Bilbo Baggins' home has a “perfectly round door like a porthole” and a “tube-shaped hall like a tunnel.” Hobbits move silently unlike the “Big People” who make noise “like elephants.” When Bilbo approaches Smaug, the dragon's sound is compared to “a large pot galloping on the fire” and “a gigantic tom-cat purring.”

Expert Answers

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As a master of language, J. R. R. Tolkien fills The Hobbit with delightful linguistic devices, including similes. Let's look at some of these similes.

As the story opens, Tolkien describes Bilbo Baggins' home. His hobbit-hole has a “perfectly round door like a porthole,” a simile that helps us imagine the entrance to Bilbo's house. Beyond that door is a “tube-shaped hall like a tunnel.” But this is not a nasty, dirty tunnel. Rather, it is nicely paneled, carpeted, and furnished.

As we continue to read more about hobbits, we learn that hobbits can move about silently when they want to, not like the “Big People” who “come blundering along, making a noise like elephants,” which hobbits can “hear a mile off.” This simile is quite effective for highlighting the difference between hobbits and regular-sized human beings.

When Bilbo approaches the dragon Smaug, a sound begins “to throb in his ears, a sort of bubbling like the noise of a large pot galloping on the fire, mixed with a rumble as of a gigantic tom-cat purring.” This sound is, of course, the sleeping dragon, but notice the vivid similes here. We've never encountered a dragon before (and neither has Bilbo), so the narrator tells us what the dragon sounds like using everyday comparisons like a boiling pot and a purring cat. These are the very things Bilbo himself thinks of, showing his hobbit practicality and common sense. So the similes both describe the dragon and remind us of Bilbo's character.

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