Tolkien's Hobbits Show Basic Goodness of People
Noelle Hay

During a discussion I recently had with a Tolkien fan, he informed me that we are all like Gollum, selfish and prone to evil. I think he missed Tolkien's message in LOTR. Certainly we are all tempted by evil, but the moment Tolkien introduced us to Samwise Gamgee he was saying quite the opposite. No character is as clearly prone to good as he is. Down to earth and common as the soil he worked in, Sam was Tolkiens tie to his readers. He wasn't the noble son of a king, or the adopted son of an eccentric millionaire. He was a gardener, like his father before him and the one character in the book we could all understand.

Sam. Even his name is simple. Not so complicated as Meriadoc Brandybuck nor so noble sounding as Peregrin Took. Uncomplicated as his name, no character is either hated or loved with such pasion as Samwise Gamgee. Perhaps the reason he evokes such passion is that he reflects those traits in ourselves we either hate or love.

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