Gollum

Gollum is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth. He was introduced in the 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, and became a major character in its sequel, The Lord of the Rings. Gollum was a Stoor Hobbit of the River-folk who lived near the Gladden Fields. In The Lord of the Rings, it is stated that he was originally known as Sméagol before he was corrupted by the One Ring, and later named Gollum after his habit of making "a horrible swallowing noise in his throat". Sméagol obtained the Ring by murdering his cousin Déagol, who found it in the River Anduin. Gollum calls the Ring "my precious", and it extended his life far beyond natural limits. Centuries of the Ring's influence have twisted Gollum's body and mind, and, by the time of the novels, he "loved and hated [the Ring], as he loved and hated himself." Throughout the story, Gollum is torn between his lust for the Ring and his desire to be free of it. In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins finds the One Ring and takes it for his own, and Gollum afterwards pursues it for the rest of his life. In The Return of the King, Gollum finally seizes the Ring from Frodo Baggins at the Crack of Doom in Mount Doom in Mordor, but he falls into the fires of the volcano, where both he and the Ring are destroyed. Commentators have treated Gollum as a monster: the Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger suggests that Gollum is Tolkien's central monster-figure. Others have described Gollum as a psychological shadow figure for Frodo, and as an evil guide in contrast to the wizard Gandalf, the good guide. They have noted, too, that Gollum is not wholly evil, and has a part to play in...