Tolkien's On Fairy Stories and the Hobbit Essay

Tolkien's On Fairy Stories and the Hobbit - Essay Example In Tolkien’s, â€Å"On Fairy Stories,† he discusses the definition of â€Å"fairy-story.† He references the definition of the Oxford English Dictionary on â€Å"fairy-tale† as (1) a fairy legend, (2) an incredible story or unreal story, (c) a falsehood. Tolkien disagrees with all of the three definitions and describes his own definition. Tolkien argues that the term â€Å"Faà «rie† lacks definition. He says "Faà «rie cannot be caught in a net of words; It has many ingredients, but analysis will not necessarily discover the secret of the whole†. In Tolkien's essay, he says that he does not take beast-fables as fairy stories. He argues that these are stories "which no human being is concerned; or in which the animals are the heroes and heroines". However, he states that animals being able to speak have a venue in fairy stories since it gets from the desire for humans to communicate with other living beings. Since Tolkien believes an important operation of Faerie is "the satisfaction of certain primordial human desires," it makes a lot of sense that he included this into his fairy story. In The Hobbit, Bilbo communicates with the spiders, eagles, and Roà ¤c the raven. Gandalf understands the language of the Wargs although no one in the party can, and the dwarves understand the language of the ravens and crows. Some aspects of fairy-stories are in the plot of Tolkien’s The Hobbit. In â€Å"On Fairy-Stories†, â€Å"Faà «rie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted†. Reading the story of The Hobbit, various imagery of nature, and the creatures and characters that dwell in it have been described in detail.