The Hobbit: Idioms 1 key example

The proverb or idiom "out of the frying-pan into the fire" is a way English-speakers sometimes express the notion of getting out of danger only to find oneself in even greater danger. Literally, it refers to food that jumps out of the pan where it is being cooked, as though it is breaking free. This food usually falls straight into the incinerating flames below, to an even worse fate. The phrase has a folksy air to it. Historically in England, cooking over a fire was an experience highly familiar to the working class, country dwellers, or humble travelers who made camp outside; by contrast, it may not have been part of the daily routine for the upper-class or those who lived in the city and had food prepared for them.

Bilbo's way of expressing this feeling is "escaping goblins to be caught by wolves," which sounds far more outlandish than "out of the frying-pan into the fire." This is a clear instance where Tolkien plays with the principles of translation and the ways they can help him build a fantasy world that is connected to the real world. Translation exists on a spectrum from literal to idiomatic. A purely literal translation conveys an original text word-for-word into another language. Literally, Bilbo's phrase is about goblins and wolves. This kind of translation may be the most technically accurate, but it can read as awkward and even alienating. Because of both linguistic and cultural differences, readers who encounter a literally translated phrase probably do not get quite the same feeling from it as those who have read it in the original language.

A purely idiomatic translation, on the other hand, abandons word-for-word accuracy in favor of recreating the "gist" and feeling of the source material in language that sounds natural. By offering "out of the frying-pan into the fire" as the idiomatic translation of "escaping goblins to be caught by wolves," Tolkien creates an equivalence between these two phrases and suggests that the kind of fantastical danger Bilbo is experiencing is almost par for the course in Middle Earth. Wolves and goblins are part of daily life for travelers there, just as a campfire is part of daily life for humble travelers through the English countryside. This emphasis helps Tolkien ensure that Bilbo remains a down-to-earth, folksy character even when he experiences things that seem larger than life. Middle Earth is a wildly different place from the world Tolkien's readers inhabit, and yet he is always finding ways to demonstrate that the worlds are not so different as they may seem at first blush. Both worlds are full of thinking, feeling characters who encounter conflict and overcome challenges. Both need some idiomatic expression to capture the specific feeling of futility Bilbo experiences here; the language differs, but the core meaning is the same.