Good Form and Riddling Talk: Imperialist Rhetoric in The Hobbit and Peter Pan

Abstract: This paper places J. R. R. Tolkien’s and J. M. Barrie’s famous children’s stories— The Hobbit and Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up , respectively—in conversation with each other to examine The Hobbit ’s original context as a self-contained work of children’s literature. A comparative reading of these texts’ villains reveals that both Smaug and Captain Hook utilize refined rhetoric to intimidate their childlike opponents, reflecting ideas of Western superiority prevalent in the Edwardian and Modern eras even as their characterizations subvert cultural and literary conventions. Analyzing how their rhetorical tactics are connected to the British classroom shows that these characters’ language demonstrates an imperialist logic that a mastery of English rhetoric supports one’s ability to redefine and categorize others to justify conquest. The paper concludes by considering the larger significance of Tolkien’s and Barrie’s protagonists ultimately adopting these imperialist rhetorical strategies to defeat their foes.