character sketch

Gollum is a fascinating character. Like Smaug, his solitary life is a clue to his wicked nature; all other characters in the book, even the evil Goblins and Wargs, are members of communities. Gollum is so alone that he speaks only to himself, even on the rare occasions when he finds himself with someone else, as he does with Bilbo in Chapter 5. He speaks to others in the third person, apparently unable to say "you," and he calls himself "my precious" out of a perverted kind of self-love. He is clever, as seen when he engages Bilbo in the exchange of riddles, but his cleverness is only a means of entrapping his victims. He is the owner of the ring of invisibility, and he flies into a murderous rage when he realizes that Bilbo has found it.