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Location
Weatherford, Oklahoma
Document Type
Paper
Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-54.htm
Start Date
25-7-2026 4:30 PM
End Date
25-7-2026 5:20 PM
Description
Much like Bilbo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit travelers along Route 66 knew where their journey would take them, but not how it would change them. Applying liminal theory this paper demonstrates that Route 66 and Tolkien’s road function as transformative threshold spaces where travelers leave behind familiar identities to enter landscapes marked by uncertainty, danger, and possibility. Dust Bowl Migrants—individuals and families fleeing the Depression for better opportunities—and Bilbo all set out to find a better, if not different future. Their journeys transform and change them, making them more than what they once were. Route 66 exists as a part of the mythic journey, one in which passage through unfamiliar landscapes alters consciousness, identity, and one’s relationship to home. Reading Tolkien’s narrative alongside the lived experience of migration along “The Mother Road” reveals how the unknown road operates as a site of personal and social transformation in both fantasy and history.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Between the Unexpected and the Unknown: The Liminal Transformation of Bilbo Baggins and Travelers Along Route 66
Weatherford, Oklahoma
Much like Bilbo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit travelers along Route 66 knew where their journey would take them, but not how it would change them. Applying liminal theory this paper demonstrates that Route 66 and Tolkien’s road function as transformative threshold spaces where travelers leave behind familiar identities to enter landscapes marked by uncertainty, danger, and possibility. Dust Bowl Migrants—individuals and families fleeing the Depression for better opportunities—and Bilbo all set out to find a better, if not different future. Their journeys transform and change them, making them more than what they once were. Route 66 exists as a part of the mythic journey, one in which passage through unfamiliar landscapes alters consciousness, identity, and one’s relationship to home. Reading Tolkien’s narrative alongside the lived experience of migration along “The Mother Road” reveals how the unknown road operates as a site of personal and social transformation in both fantasy and history.
https://dc.swosu.edu/mythcon/mc54/schedule/20
