BY MARTINA JURIČKOVÁ

This article is a chapter from my research on Tolkien’s depiction of cardinal vices and their opposing virtues in his Middle-earth stories. This paper consists of two parts—the first focusing on the vice of gluttony, the second on its opposing virtue of temperance—according to The Hobbit.

Gluttony in The Hobbit

Before jumping onto the analysis of Tolkien’s works, it is necessary to define what exactly is understood by the respective vice and virtue from a religious point of view.

As regards gluttony, it is the inordinate desire for the pleasures of food and drink. Now, since food and drink are necessary for sustaining one’s life, consuming them in such an amount that ensures this and in a moderate manner, it is not sinful. It becomes a sin when man puts the pleasures of table above anything else; that is when the proverbial “eat to live” becomes reversed. Food consumption becomes gluttonous when one eats in excessive amount, too often (almost without break), sumptuously, hastily, greedily, daintily (being too picky, preferring luxurious food and despising the simple), or one is unwilling to share.[1] Gluttony in drink is called drunkenness. The evil effects of both are: unseemly joy, dullness of mind, scurrility, loquaciousness, and uncleanness. Due to gluttony affecting the reason, it is a gateway to other, graver sins.[2]

Plot-wise, gluttony is the fifth most prominent vice of The Hobbit, with greater emphasis put on it in the first half of the book, particularly in chapters II, V, and VIII (notice the regular pattern of two chapters in between each) where it is embodied by the monsters: trolls, Gollum, and spiders, as Chance (2001) observes. In the second half of the book, it is mentioned to be exercised also by Smaug and unsurprisingly so, since it is a natural feature of dragons to kill and devour. However, gluttony is not his dominant vice—he is not shown to have killed anyone in the story. Instead, that is greed, of which he is an epitome. So in my view, the epitome of gluttony are the trolls.

The trolls are almost always hungry; they feed on anything living, including other humanoid beings, and thus, in a sense, are cannibalistic; they are pitiless with their victims (only William shows pity for the captured Bilbo, but only because he is rather full at the moment); greedy (they ate half a village); picky (they cannot decide on a way to cook their victims); and ungrateful (they have plenty of mutton yet keep whining about the monotony of their menu). The fact that they stop fighting each other when they spot the dwarves implies that their gluttony is greater than their wrathfulness and the combination of these two vices eventually kills them. Kindled by Gandalf’s pecks, they become so absorbed in the argument on how to cook the dwarves that they become incautious and do not notice the rising sun which turns them into stone. So here we have a series of vice-incurred discatastrophies: starting with the dwarves’ curiosity and gluttony (though justified by their lack of warmth and resources) that motivates them to inspect the strange light source which turns out to be the trolls’ campfire; through Bilbo’s prideful attempt to rob the trolls resulting in the discatastrophe of the dwarves being captured by the monsters; and ending with their gluttonous quarrel and petrification which came to be only through divine intervention in the person of Gandalf, thus turning the trolls’ discatastrophe into the dwarves’ eucatastrophe.

The second greatest glutton is Gollum who, like the trolls, cannibalistically feeds on anything, including the goblins, which makes his sin even nastier than the trolls’ sin.[3] His conversation with Bilbo reveals that in his pockets he only has items related to eating: fishbones, goblin teeth, wet shells, a bit of bat wing, a stone to sharpen his fangs on (Tolkien, 2011a, p. 75); plus three of the nine riddles they exchange are related to eating (teeth, egg, fish) with one more repeating the fish answer and two more mentioning biting and devouring, thus making two thirds of the riddles pertaining to gluttony either in its literal or metaphoric sense. He also threatens to eat Bilbo, but what is worse, he uses the invisibility power of the Ring to hunt down his victims. Gollum embodies the morbid extreme of the Hobbits’ race-specific proneness to gluttony when combined with an utter lack (or rather forsaking) of morality.

As for the Hobbits’ gluttony, this subject has been touched upon by several scholars, for example Nelson (2000), Markos (2012), and Skoble (2013), who all agree that the Hobbits’ attitude to food is not actually vicious, despite their six-meals-a-day tradition and frequent attendance of parties in order to get free food, which makes it seem that they do nothing else but eat all days long. But before embarking on the explanation, let us have a look at Bilbo’s development throughout The Hobbit. At the beginning, he is a typical representative of his race, greatly appreciating the possibility of having his meals in peace, undisturbed by unwanted visitors, and having enough time for them and for the consequential smoking which he was particularly fond of, getting rather fat, slothful, and greedy (Tolkien, 1998, p. 418), which, as Chance (2001, p. 62) remarks, is manifested in his hoarding of food in the many cellars of his little “kingdom under the Mountain.” He is horrified by the intruders’ knowledge of his pantries and their appetite and afraid they will eat all his stocks. Later, on the journey, he often dreams of his pantries, but soon his as well as the dwarves’ attitude changes. Apropos Dwarves, they are no less suspicious of gluttony and inclined to obesity than the Hobbits, so the whole company whines a lot when their supplies lessen. However, their hunger and whining is mostly justified as their many misfortunes cause them to lose their supplies and there are not many opportunities to replenish them. So no wonder that for the sake of satisfying their genuine hunger they choose non-standard and quite disgusting options, such as eating acorns and squirrels; risk their lives (their decision to inspect the trolls’ camp); and transgress ethical norms (invisible Bilbo stealing the Elves’ food in their caves)[4] and prohibitions (go off the path in Mirkwood and interfere with the Elves’ feasting though they may never find the path again, which shows that due to anger they begin to abandon reason and cautiousness). They even start to desire to be captured by the Elves only to be fed, and thinking of food they, and specifically Bilbo, almost fail to notice the threat of the spiders.[5] Having nothing to eat, they, willingly or not, begin to learn the value of food, cease to be picky, and exercise abstinence, but since it is developed out of necessity rather than their will, it is not really virtuous, just as their food eagerness is not vicious.

However, that cannot be said of the Elves, who neglect their duty due to their gluttony, specifically gluttony in drinking. The prison guard and the butler are greedy for something that is not becoming to them—the king’s finest wine—which in effect makes them fast asleep, creating thus an opportunity for the prisoners to escape, which to the Elves is a discatastrophe. But it is not the fault of only the two Elves, but of the whole community which, due to being so immersed in their feasting, left the realm so poorly guarded, basically delegating all the responsibility to a single person, the unreliable prison guard. The Elves’ gluttony is more grievous since they appropriate all the prey animals in Mirkwood for themselves, punishing all who would try to kill any of them in hunger, and organizing several grandiose feasts while refusing to share with the needy, resembling thus the rich man from the Lazarus parable (Luke 16:19–31). I admit that this parallel may be but the result of my focused analysis and never consciously implemented or recognized by Tolkien, which would explain why he left this vice unpunished (unless the loss of prisoners can be considered a punishment), nor commented on (unlike the Hobbits’ gluttony).

Temperance in The Hobbit

Contrary to gluttony is the general cardinal virtue of temperance. As a general virtue, it ensures the reason and will’s governance and moderation of bodily functions and desires and pertains to all moral virtues. In the narrow sense, as a specific virtue, it particularly regards the senses of taste and touch.[6] The Catechism (2003, par. 1809) defines it as “the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honourable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains a healthy discretion.”

The virtues adjacent to temperance in the general sense are: modesty, moderation, shamefacedness, lowliness, humility, honesty, continence, gravity, chastity, purity, sobriety, abstinence, and fasting. Sobriety is contrary to drunkenness and denotes drinking in a moderate measure. Abstinence properly regards the retrenchment of food and how readily one goes without food in case of necessity thereof. Fasting is the action of abstaining from food for some reasonable purpose, often religious or ritual.[7]

As shown above, the attitude of Thorin’s company to food changes in the course of the story from relative gluttony to abstinence in need, which is most remarkable in the character of Bilbo. By chapter XIII, Bilbo begins to distinguish between situations in which food becomes irrelevant in the face of greater dangers (despite his hunger, he would give up breakfast just to learn about Smaug’s whereabouts after leaving the Mountain) and when it is necessary to ensure survival at the expense of other desires (he sees there is no point in defending a great treasure if one is going to die of starvation because of it). The changing attitude to food also reflects in his changing (ceasing) slothfulness. As Nelson (2000, p. 92) observes, with diminishing gluttony, the hobbits develop constancy, bravery, and sense of moral responsibility, which is illustrated by Bilbo’s activity in trying to avoid the war between Thorin and the alliance of Men and Elves. Skoble (2013, p. 115) elaborates this idea even further, claiming that the more a person exercises a certain virtuous action, the easier he finds it, and “reflection on past experience produces changes in character” whereby the person then responds differently to new experiences. Such change is evident also in Bilbo with regard to his gluttony. At the end, he invited the dwarves to stop by his place for tea anytime they go near it, and indeed in the final scene, readers see him heartily welcoming Gandalf and Balin to an unexpected tea party, which poses a sharp contrast to the opening chapter. Thus Bilbo, the anxious and unwilling host from the beginning is turned into a generous and kind host at the end. And as if that was not enough, the Bilbo of The Lord of the Rings exceeds himself in generosity by organizing a megalomaniac party for his 111th birthday party, providing such an amount of free food for the whole region as makes the hobbits feel full for several days.

Apropos Hobbits’ racial inclination to gluttony, Skoble (ibid., p. 114) here claims that their attitude to food is not overtly vicious. On the contrary, the fact that they still have a concept of overdoing it—and I would add also that they find certain eating habits disgusting and can easily adjust to forced abstinence without much whining—shows that their attitude is reasonable or even temperate. Instead, their appreciation of food exemplifies a healthy attitude to life and the ability to enjoy the small pleasures it offers every day, which, according to Markos (2012, p. 79), Tolkien understood to be a virtue, and which is implied by Thorin’s deathbed remark to Bilbo.[8] Markos claims that moderate eating, drinking, and smoking can enhance friendship, inspire gratitude, and draw shy people out of themselves. However, overindulgence in these activities for the purpose of separating oneself from one’s responsibilities and life issues damages one’s personhood and God-given potential and that is why it is problematic. Gluttons become devouring monsters, heedless of anything and anyone else, transgressing the primary Christian law of charity. The hobbits never get to this point; on the contrary, they maintain a prosperous society based on community collaboration with minimal state regulations, because they are (almost) all guided by innate objective morality laws in the form of “common sense.” The Shire thus represents almost an ideal Christian nation where all human interaction is inspired by charity.\

This article is excerpted from Cardinal Vices in Middle-earth by Martina Juričková (Peter Lang, 2025).

Quotations

[1] Like the rich man in the parable of Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31).

[2] Aquinas, 1999, pp. 4085–4095, 4102–4108.

[3] In The Lord of the Rings (2011b, p. 58) it says that after leaving the Misty Mountains in search for Bilbo, he fed on children and babies and sucked human blood.

[4] In the end, Bilbo repays his food thefts by gifting a necklace to the Elvenking.

[5] As for the spiders, Chance (2001, p. 59) claims they “exemplify uncontrolled gluttony and anger on the lowest level.” Their gluttony is alluded to in Bilbo’s song which angers them mightily, and it is exactly on account of the dominance of their wrath that they are easily distracted from their victims and lose them, this being their personal discatastrophe. Contrary to the trolls in whom gluttony prevails over anger, in the spiders, anger prevails over gluttony.

[6] Stanček, 2005, pp. 111, 132–133; Childress, 1986, pp. 618–619).

[7] Aquinas, 1999, pp. 4020–4034, 4045, 4064–4084, 4096–4101.

[8] “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world” (Tolkien, 2011a, p. 263).

Resources

Catechism of the Catholic Church, [online], 2003. Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Citta del Vaticano, 1993. Online available at: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

Chance, J., Tolkien the Medievalist, [online], 2003, Routledge, 1979. 295 pp. ISBN 0-41528-944-0, downloadable at: http://www.scribd.com

Chance, J., Tolkien’s Art: A Mythology for England, [online], 2001, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2001. 262 pp. ISBN 0-81319-020-7, downloadable at: http://www.scribd.com

Childress, J.F.; MacQuarrie, J. (eds.), New Dictionary of Christian Ethics, 1986, The Westminster Press, 1967. 678 pp. ISBN 0-334-02205-3

Markos, L., On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis, 2012, Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2012. 240 pp. ISBN 978-0-8024-4319-9

Nelson, C. W., 2000. The Sins of Middle-earth: Tolkien’s Use of Medieval Allegory. In: Clark, G.; Simmons, T., J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth, 2000. Greenwood Publishing Group. 213 pp. ISBN 978-0-313-30845-1  

Skoble, A. J., 2013. Virtue and Vice in The Lord of the Rings. In The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All. 2013, Open Court. 336 pp. ISBN 978-0-812-69806-0. Available at: books.google.com

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, [online], 1999, Raleigh: Hayes Barton Press, 1999. 5507 pp. ISBN 1-59377-495-8, online available at books.google.com

Stanček, Ľ., Čnosti, 2005, Kňažský seminár biskupa Jána Vojtašáka, 2005. 203 pp. ISBN 8089170161

The New American Bible, [online], 2002, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2002. Online available at: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/_INDEX.HTM

Tolkien, J.R.R., The Hobbit, 2011a, London: HarperCollins, 1937. 336 pp. ISBN 978-0-261-10334-4

Tolkien, J.R.R., The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2011b, London: HarperCollins, 1954. 424 pp.  ISBN 978-0-261-10357-3

Tolkien, J.R.R., The Unfinished Tales, 1998, London: HarperCollins, 1998. 624 pp. ISBN 978-0-261-10362-8