LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 05 - A Conspiracy Unmasked

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I made the mistake of saying about the last chapter that it was “slight” and not very interesting – then we ended up having not just one of the most interesting discussions in the CbC forum to date, but even spawning our first spin-off thread!

Determined not to make the same mistake twice, I dove into “A Conspiracy Unmasked” determined to find matters that might give it a bit more weight. What I found myself remarking upon was the oddly dark undercurrents to the chapter. It takes place entirely at night, and the descriptions of the night and dark surrounding the house seemed consistently to set off the smallness of the light contained within. This is no return to the relative safety of Bag End like we found at the beginning. Frodo comments that his things have been arranged to make it “look like home,” but of course it cannot look like home for it is not home. I think beneath the comfort and cheer of the songs and the food, there is a terrible melancholy as Frodo’s now-houseless existence is being ironically underscored by this ‘moving in.’ Compare the sense of transience and danger of this chapter to the warmth and safety of Farmer Maggot’s house – Frodo is indeed upon the very edge of his adventure and his journey: this last stopping place in the Shire is only a stop-over, a home he cannot enjoy, and a place where he can only rest up for the trials ahead. I think that it is entirely fitting and right that he should have a dream which foreshadows his final home (looking to the Sea and the west). That dream is another melancholy note, and it ends this chapter in which the hobbits try so hard to maintain a tone of bright happiness.

I think that this is what I found most striking about this chapter: the hobbits are being very hobbitty, but unlike the Party with which the book began, it all seems so much more fragile here. Now that Frodo has completed the first part of his journey and he and his companions are aware of the dangers (and glories) that exist beyond the Shire, their attempt to make themselves ‘at home’ is doomed to failure. They have already been changed, irrevocably, by their experiences, and I find that very sad in a way.

There’s another interesting echo between the hobbits and the Nazgûl, I think (again, with the echoes!). Merry, Pippin, Fatty and Sam have been “unmasked” – this evokes I think the ‘masks’ that the Nazgûl wear at all times and can never take off. Also, the hobbits are in a “conspiracy”; this is a loaded term – one “conspires” against another. I am not suggesting that the hobbits are against Frodo in any way (quite the opposite), but the choice of this word for the chapter title (and they use it themselves) highlights both the connections and contrasts between these two groups.

When we do this, the whole chapter gives us a new view of the Shire – or, rather, a clearer view of the Shire. At the beginning of the book, hobbits were eating and singing and being very silly and charming and it was all lovely and enjoyable. Unbeknownst to them (and to the reader) however, there were these terrible forces of darkness closing in upon them from all sides, drawn by the power of an evil object possessed by a hobbit who was a bit of an outsider in the community, but still a part of the community. In this chapter we have precisely the same situation – with the hobbits inside singing their bath songs and eating mushrooms, and the Nazgûl on the outside, drawn by the power of the Ring – but it all feels so very different, perhaps even wrong. The hobbits (and the reader) have now learned to see their world the way others have for centuries (the Elves, Gandalf, the Rangers); they are aware of the danger and the darkness, and their hobbitty ways are somehow a bit sillier than they were formerly. It’s like growing out of our childhood games. Once you’ve seen what a real gun will do to a person, who wants to play ‘cowboys and Indians’? This chapter, for me, marks the loss of innocence for Frodo. The sense of the disconnect that already exists between Frodo and his community is palpable throughout the chapter. He is going away, probably (he thinks) forever.

At the same time, however, this new and greater awareness gives the hobbits their first chance to show what they are capable of, since not only their silliness is set off against the darkness of reality, but so are the bonds of friendship and goodwill that hold them together. It’s one thing to stand by your friends when your biggest concern is wrangling for that last mushroom…it’s an altogether different thing when you are being chased by the Nine.

I’m not silly enough to do the former, and I’m not brave enough to do the latter. That’s how I know I’m not a hobbit…