"Hobbits truly are amazing creatures," Gandalf states early on in the Fellowship of the Ring. Hobbits are an invented race from the mind of J.R.R. Tolkien. With the New Line Cinema versions of The Lord of the Rings, Hobbits are becoming a well-known name, even thought they are mythical. Hobbits are truly the central characters in the story. A hobbit is intertwined in all parts of the story. The character may not be large but still has a role to play.
A Hobbit is a simple creature that lives at home and loves the earth. Tolkien could have written the characters of the Hobbits to represent the every day person. If you look at the hobbits in the beginning of the trilogy, they are simple and far from danger as they may put it. Hobbits and their home, the Shire, can be seen as the innocent part of Middle-Earth. The only thing they know about the outside world, they got from their hometown hero Bilbo Baggins.
Just as the reader only knows the parts that Bilbo experienced in Tolkiens first book The Hobbit. The Hobbits may be the reader at the begging of the movie. The reader might be best to visualize the novel through the eyes of a hobbit. Our main character Frodo Baggins does not necessarily know what he is getting into to when he agrees to take the ring. Just as he does not know what is chasing him on the roads as he exits the shire. The reader is kept in suspense as the reader shares the ignorance of Frodo. When Frodo finds out the reader finds out as well. The reader is kept interested by the connection that is made between the Hobbits and the overall story.
The Hobbits have a hand in everything or anything that is going on. Tolkien keeps them in the story line and at the right moment he makes them act. The fellowship up until the end of book one is composed of four Hobbits plus five other races. The Hobbits are Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippen. These hobbits are first seen wandering the lands in and out side of the Shire. As soon as they find themselves in Rivendale, Elrond creates the fellowship to destroy the one ring. Merry, Pippen as well as Sam desperately dash to Frodo's side as if they don't want to be left out of the story. At the end of Fellowship of the Ring we see the hobbits get separated, Pippen and Merry going off to meet Treebeard and the Ents; Sam and Frodo pressing on by themselves. From here, the Hobbits begin to start putting the pieces together in their own story.
Sam and Frodo meet up with Gollum, the infamous ring bearer from The Hobbit. We learn earlier that Gollum himself was a Hobbit-like creature. Gollum guides Sam and Frodo to Shelob were Frodo is captured. You can analyze possibilities about Gollum leading Sam and Frodo. Even though Gollum's intentions may have been wrong, he could have very well got them farther than they could have ever gone by themselves. As many, we learn at the end of the story, it is Gollum that "Saves the Day" by attacking Frodo as Frodo tried to take the ring for himself at the cliffs of Mount Doom.
Merry and Pippen have their own adventure as the Uruk-Hai warriors haul them off. When they escape and meet Treebeard, they convince the Ents to help them overtake Saruman at Isengard. This is a key position in the War of the Ring, With Saruman attacking from the west and Sauron from the East. It's this part of the story where we meet more characters from the realm of men. That is the Men of Gondor and the men of Rohan.
As soon as the Hobbits are re-united with other members of the fellowship, Pippen makes haste to Gondor and Merry stays with the men of Rohan. This is how Tolkien keeps us as, the reader, involved with the races and events that are throughout the whole story. The reader has a familiar face and character in all parts of the story.
Each character does something courageous that you may not expect from Hobbits. For Frodo it's carrying the ring, while Sam's love for Frodo drives him to endure all odds as they approach Mordor. Pippen goes to Gondor and serves for King Denethor and saves Famrimir, Denethor's son, from the madness that overtakes Denethor. Merry stays and rides with the riders of Rohan and strikes a critical blow to the Witch King of Angmar, which leads to his death. Each Hobbit has his own achievements and in the end we see them all together again safe and healthy just as they started.
As the story comes to a close, we say goodbye to all the friends of the Hobbits and head back to the Shire. What better place to end it than right back in Hobbiton. The Hobbits take the reader on an adventure to remember and when it is all over the reader is taken back home. The Shire is the safe place for the hobbits as well as the reader. They know that if they get back to the Shire than the story has a happy ending. The reader comes back to the real world and can understand on a personal level what the hobbits went through. It's not as if we are reading about the adventures, but experiencing them first hand. When the Hobbits return they are different people. The reader shares each experience with the characters and ends the story content.