1. A Long-expected Party
In the prologue, we learned that the hobbits symbolically represent human children living in holes, in unconscious anticipation of being born and becoming mature individuals. It is therefore fitting that the saga’s first chapter revolves around a birthday. In the next chapter, the wise old man arrives with tidings that the shadows are approaching, that is, symptoms that something is amiss (according to the prevailing, mother-bound order) and that this needs to be addressed. In the following chapter the adventure begins - the hobbits leave the Shire. When interpreting symbolic expressions, such as dreams and folktales, “one thing follows another” is a useful rule: because the hobbits are unconscious and mother-bound, Gandalf appears; as a result of Gandalf’s arrival, Frodo leaves the Shire (the Mother); because Frodo leaves the Shire, the Black Riders appear, and so forth.
Bilbo is the protagonist of the saga that precedes The Lord of the Rings. It tells how Bilbo, like Frodo soon will, is lured into adventure by Gandalf. In the caves beneath the Misty Mountains, he finds the ring and eventually returns home with dragon treasures, also taken from beneath the earth. Now, many years later, he is remarkably “well-preserved,” appearing eternally youthful. Those who have read the books know that it is the ring that delays aging, simply having that magical effect on humans (and hobbits). Symbolically, this means that as long as Bilbo possesses the ring, that is, remains bound to the Great Mother, he simply does not grow up. It may be a lot to ask, but one could speculate that Bilbo was meant to slay the dragon, the symbol of the Terrible Mother par excellence - but he did not. (The dragon was killed by a human in a town somewhat peripheral to the rest of the saga, while Bilbo was inactive far away.) Bilbo returned to the Shire with material abundance, something characteristic of the Great Mother. In her bosom one has everything and need not worry about budgets, paydays, or debts. He failed to overcome the mother complex and thus passed the problem on to Frodo. What parents do not live out falls upon their children to bear. Children inherit their parents’ unlived lives, as Jung noted:
“[As] the son of his father, he must, as is often the case with children, re-enact under unconscious compulsion the unlived lives of his parents.”[1]
Frodo thus inherits the ring, and it falls to him to overcome the problem it entails. Bilbo is not Frodo’s father in a literal sense, but old Bilbo has no children, and young Frodo has no parents, and they live in the same house and share a surname. Significantly, Frodo is in his “tweens,” which denotes “the irresponsible time between the end of childhood and the onset of mature manhood.” He is, at the start of the saga, precisely at the age when initiation rites were typically performed.
That something fateful is afoot is hinted at by the numbers in question. Bilbo is turning 111, and Frodo 33 (they share birthday). Both numbers express “three”, a masculine number often denoting fate or “a developmental process in time.”[2] Their home is called Bag End, a name that, according to Tolkien, is meant to evoke a dead end.[3] In other words, the two hobbits are stuck with their ring. However, the fact that the number three approaches with great fanfare - the grand celebration - indicates that the time has come to break out of this static, mother-bound situation. Frodo will embark on an adventure and thereby individuate.
He is thus a hero in the making. We understand this not least because he is an orphan. In this chapter, we sit at a table in a Shire inn and hear stories about how both his father and mother drowned - that is, were swallowed by the Great Mother. The hobbits in this part of the Shire fear water, as it represents the dangerous quality of her. In any case, Frodo is an orphan, which is a prerequisite for a hero. The influential author and Jungian analyst Edward F. Edinger states:
“Becoming an orphan means losing parental support and breaking parental projections; it is also a fundamental prerequisite for a conscious experience of individuality.”[4]
Thus, we see already in the opening pages of the first chapter several signs that Frodo is meant to embark on an adventure to break the enchantment that keeps him trapped in a dead end alongside Bilbo and the ring.
Another thing we learn while eavesdropping at the inn is that the Bagginses - particularly Bilbo, but also Frodo, who is somewhat of an outsider - are considered strange and peculiar. The gossip represents the collective, the general populace, which naively strives for everything to remain as it has always been and thus shuns deviant individuals and impulses. This also indicates that the Bagginses represent the individual impulse, the “strange” in relation to the collectivism of the Great Mother, who takes care of everyone provided they relinquish their individuality (or rather, never develop it). If nobody rocks the boat, She takes care of everything. But if someone stands up and looks in a different direction, a disturbance arises that is frowned upon by the group. Because Frodo represents the individual impulse and lives not only in a hole in the ground but also at a dead end, he is in a soon-to-be-conscious conflict that provokes what Jung called the transcendent function—in the saga represented by Gandalf.
Back to the celebration: it takes place in September, which is, of course, the ninth month of the year, further emphasizing the number three and its fateful significance. Wagons roll into the Shire. First come dwarves, followed by the wizard Gandalf, the wise old man. We saw the same pattern in The Hobbit, where the adventure begins with dwarves unexpectedly visiting the protagonist. Only then does Gandalf enter the picture. Why is Gandalf preceded by dwarves? In short, dwarves represent unconscious, creative impulses that, figuratively - and in folktales sometimes literally - spring up from the earth. They also bring a wagon full of packages, a kind of gift of creativity. We will return to Gandalf and this concept, but in the saga, he plays the role of a daemon. According to Jung, this is an inner driving force in the form of an archetype that propels a person in a creative direction. This inner force is part of the individuation process, which the daemon often initiates. The daemon is thus closely associated with creativity, and here, its entry into Frodo’s life is preceded by dwarves, the small, creative impulses that one would be wise to heed. Gandalf brings fireworks, bundles of energy that he, as a daemon, can unleash in the hobbits’ world.
Bilbo’s garden is lovely, and his celebration is characterized by material abundance; as mentioned, he has “everything” in the Mother’s world. But this one-sided goodness must be counterbalanced by its opposite, and we know that evil is concentrated in the ring in his pocket. The celebration is grandiose, with an endless array of gifts, food, and drink - and Gandalf’s magnificent fireworks. It is a birthday - something new has come to the Shire - which this daemon deems worth celebrating. We understand that he represents fire. The grand finale is a fire-breathing dragon, as if to underscore this.
In conclusion, Bilbo delivers his speech beneath the tree. Trees are one of the central symbols in the saga. The vibrant celebration tree in the feminine Shire is contrasted with the withering tree in the masculine Minas Tirith; but before the hobbits reach the stone city on the border of Mordor, they encounter the sinister Old Man Willow in the Old Forest, climb the magnificent elven trees in Lothlórien, and meet the ancient tree-beings, the Ents. We will, of course, return to this symbol. Generally, the tree symbolizes individuation, autonomously growing within us; “the tree is an archaic symbol that always refers to an inner developmental process,” Jung notes.[5] We can assume the tree carries this symbolism here, as the number of guests is deliberately 144. Just as the triad was emphasized, now the quaternity is highlighted, which, in symbolic expressions, according to Jung, represents the Self, or “wholeness.” Bilbo thus stands at the center of the world, under the tree - the world axis - in the company of “his own,” but no longer so one-sidedly, as both Gandalf and dwarves are present (along with the ring), and the image expresses the wholeness that is now about to break apart.
The Self, wholeness, and individuation are typically positive values, but they presuppose consciousness. As hinted in the prologue, the hobbits’ world in the Mother’s bosom is characterized by unconsciousness. This unconscious wholeness must, through adventure, be replaced by a conscious wholeness, as depicted in the saga’s final scene with Sam and his family. This dynamic in the making is also concealed in the number 144, as it is 12x12. The number twelve is one of the primary wholeness numbers, composed of 3x4 - that is, both the masculine, active (the adventure) and the feminine, resting (the Shire, where the saga begins and ends).
The negative unconsciousness is symbolized by the malevolent ring, which Bilbo fingers while delivering his speech, perhaps explaining why it is received with mixed feelings by the audience. Then Bilbo disappears, as far as the guests know, and they will never see him again. We have already touched on this, and we will return to it, but disappearing symbolizes dissolution into the unconscious, into the Great Mother. With a conscious wholeness, one does not run this risk, but an unconscious wholeness risks dissolution. We will see that Frodo, during his adventure, repeatedly risks being swallowed by the unconscious in his pursuit of consciousness or individuation. In the saga, Bilbo’s disappearance leaves a bitter aftertaste among the guests, as it reminds them of the danger they all face in the bosom of the Good Mother.
Then follows one of the most important scenes in the book, where Bilbo packs for his journey and leaves the ring in an envelope on the mantelpiece, as previously agreed with Gandalf. But then he changes his mind and puts the envelope in his pocket instead, intending to take the ring with him on his last journey. At that moment, Gandalf enters. It is common for the archetype of wise old man to appear in our dreams when we are particularly foolish in our lives, when we need guidance.[5] One could say that Gandalf appears at this moment because Bilbo intended to keep the ring. It is a bond he cannot relinquish on his own. Had Gandalf not appeared, Bilbo would have simply taken the ring on his final adventure, risking ending up like Gollum. But unlike poor Gollum, Bilbo/Frodo has access to this guidance, this wisdom. Note that Gandalf does not dictate what Bilbo should do but acts as the archetype of the wise old man tends to - advising, perhaps challenging, but not commanding. The impulse for individuation comes from within (in the saga represented by Gandalf), but the ego must consciously make the decision and perform the actions needed (Bilbo/Frodo).
In this tense scene, Bilbo appears rather childish - self-pitying, sentimental, unreliable, petty, even aggressive - and he affectionately calls the ring “my precious,” just as Gollum did. Due to the ring, the strong bond to the Mother, Bilbo has not grown up, and if he keeps the ring, he will end up alone and miserable in her dark caves, degenerating like Gollum instead of developing. After their confrontation, Bilbo admits that he has increasingly felt an eye staring at him and has often wanted to put on the ring to disappear from others’ sight; that is, once again, to sink into unconsciousness, to dissolve, instead of confronting reality. For now, we can suffice with understanding the eye as the omnipotent Mother’s gaze, which the child cannot escape. In the end, Bilbo leaves the ring behind and sets out into the night with his company of three dwarves. Frodo remains alone in Bilbo’s house, inheriting his conflict, an almost overwhelming burden.
Footnotes
[1] Carl Gustav Jung, Psychological Types, trans. H. G. Baynes, rev. R. F. C. Hull, vol. 6 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. Herbert Read et al. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971), par. 307.
[2] Carl Gustav Jung, “A Psychological Approach to the Trinity,” in Psychology and Religion: West and East trans. R. F. C. Hull, vol. 11 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. Herbert Read et al. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), par. 180.
[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, “Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings.” In The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, edited by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, 750–82. (London: HarperCollins, 2005.)
[4] Edward F. Edinger, Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche. (Boston: Shambhala, 1991), p. 163.
[5] Carl Gustav Jung, Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process: Notes of C. G. Jung’s Lectures on the Analysis of a Series of Dreams of a Young Man. Edited by Suzanne Gieser. Philemon Series. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), p. 272.
[6] Carl Gustav Jung, Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930–1934. Edited by Claire Douglas. Bollingen Series, no. 99. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 562.