The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again Chapter 12 Quotes
The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again Chapter 12 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote 1
Then Bilbo fled [with the cup]. But the dragon did not wake – not yet – but shifted into other dreams of greed and violence, lying there in his stolen hall while the little hobbit toiled back up the long tunnel. His heart was beating and a more fevered shaking was in his legs than when he was going down, but still he clutched the cup, and his chief thought was: "I've done it! This will show them. 'More like a grocer than a burglar' indeed! Well, we'll hear no more of that." (12.17)
Bilbo's still trying to prove himself to the dwarves even now that he has gotten them all the way to the Lonely Mountain thanks to his wits and good luck. Obviously, that line in the first chapter that Bilbo looks "More like a grocer than a burglar" really smarts. Like the dwarves, Bilbo doesn't seem to be thinking of his quest in grand moral terms. Given that this quest doesn't seem to be about good vs. evil exactly, why do you think Gandalf has chosen to get involved?
Quote 2
Dragons may not have much real use for all their wealth, but they know it to an ounce as a rule, especially after long possession; and Smaug was no exception. He had passed from an uneasy dream (in which a warrior, altogether insignificant in size but provided with a bitter sword and great courage, figured most unpleasantly) to a doze, and from a doze to wide waking. There was a breath of strange air in his cave. Could there be a draught from that little hole? He had never felt quite happy about it, though it was so small, and now he glared at it in suspicion and wondered why he had never blocked it up. (12.20)
Even though Smaug is evil through and through, we get more narrative from his perspective than we do from any of the goblins. Why might the novel spend so much time on Smaug's perspective (and even his feelings – like Bilbo, he has anxious dreams!)? What sense do we get of Smaug's motivations in The Hobbit?
Quote 3
"I suppose you got a fair price for that cup last night?" [Smaug] went on. "Come now, did you? Nothing at all! Well, that's just like [dwarves]. And I suppose they are skulking outside, and your job is to do all the dangerous work and get what you can when I'm not looking – for them? And you will get a fair share? Don't you believe it! If you get off alive, you will be lucky."
Bilbo was now beginning to feel really uncomfortable. Whenever Smaug's roving eye, seeking for him in the shadows, flashed across him, he trembled, and an unaccountable desire seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug. In fact he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell. (12.62-3)
All of this time, we've been thinking Bilbo's the cunning one. Smaug has just seemed like a toothy, fire-breathing abstract threat, and not necessarily a thinking being. But here we get proof that dragons are surprisingly wily and well-spoken. And they can enchant you with their talking; they can put you under "the dragon-spell." Do we get any sense of Smaug as a character? Does he have any character depth or motivation for what he does?