Quests

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at the differences in quests by looking at the differences between the heroes and villains and what they are searching for. The writer talks about how the nature of the story changes according to whatever the heroes or villains are searching for. An important distinction between those quests that are successful and those that are not is discussed. The plots of Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" are also discussed in brief.

From the Paper:

"Both J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are certainly stories in the form of a quest. Indeed, in some senses The Hobbit can be seen to be a sort of "practice quest" for the hobbits, the author, and the readers. While for the dwarfs it is about the reclamation of a home, for Bilbo it is about the search for a treasure, in many ways the least interesting kind of quest.The Lord of the Rings, which is on the most transparent level also about a quest in that it takes the form of a story about a journey, is a much more interesting quest in part because this literal journey (as is true in all good quest stories) becomes increasingly metaphorical as the story progresses, and in part because of Tolkien's skilled use of mythology and comparative religion in crafting it. The traveling of the different characters becomes by the end of the trilogy a symbol and a way of understanding many different things."

More papers on Quests:

• Comparison Essay # 6450 : "Epic Identity Quests"
• Analytical Essay # 11756 : "Literary Quests"
• Research Paper # 93123 : "Quest Diagnostics"

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