Both Condescending and Enchanting: Understanding Disparate Attitudes toward the Intrusive Narrator of The Hobbit (and “Farmer Giles of Ham”)

Abstract: The intrusive narrator of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit has been hated by many (its author included) but adored or appreciated by many others. There are many who have argued that the intrusive narrator serves important roles in the text, particularly for child readers, yet many children also strongly dislike the intrusive narrator. By drawing on the experience of teaching The Hobbit to children, comparing the narrative voice to the narrator in “Farmer Giles of Ham,” and considering the narrator’s role in mediating the story, this article attempts to reconcile the disparate reactions to the simultaneously beloved and detested narrator. The article emphasizes a child reader’s perspective by considering how their reading experience is shaped by the intrusive narrator and by using Maria Nikolajeva’s concept of aetonormativity to understand a child reader’s engagement with the text as different rather than as deviant.