Locating the other: a geocriticaldeliberation On tolkien’s middle-earth
Keywords:
Locating, Geocriticism, Middle-earth
Abstract
This study highlights a salient feature of the setting in J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium, the secondary world of Middle-earth: its colonial set-up - a fact, the reader is as much conscious of as the characters are ignorant. Location of Self and Other in the races of Middle-earth, identification of the chief tropes of Self and Other of primary world in those belonging to Middle-earth, and tracing the existence of Othering in the fabric of this initiator of Epic Fantasy are the purposes of this study. This paper has used Geocriticism and its tenet of spatiality as the tool for textual analysis of Middle-earth, as shown and explained chiefly in Lord of the Rings. Events and narratives of The Hobbit and The Silmarillion have also been taken into consideration.
This paper brings to light, establishment of Men of West as the Self of Middle-earth by the author, while races of Elves, Hobbits and Orcs serve as the Othered reciprocal to the colonial reality of their world. Several aspects, including comparative geographical and topographical settings, physical and mental delineation of characters belonging to different races, as well as the turns of the plot itself in these works have analyzed in this study. Findings of this paper reveal a perpetuation of colonial and imperialist thought- through the presence and formation of Middle-earth, along with justifications of righteousness of this set up- by the contentment of the characters at their predicament
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Westphal, B. (2011b). Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Space (R.T. Tally, Trans.). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. (original work published in 2007)
.Young, H. (2016). Race and popular fantasy literature: Habits of whiteness. New York, NY: Routledge.
Bould, M., & Vint, S. (2012). Political readings. In E. James & F. Mendlesohn (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to fantasy literature (pp. 102-112). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Brown-Fuller, M. (2013). The uncanny and the postcolonial in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. [Unpublished Bachelor’ dissertation] University of Central Florida.
Childs, P., & Williams, P. (2013). An introduction to post-colonial theory. New York, NY: Routledge.
Crawford, K. (2002). Turbulent times: Epic fantasy in adolescent literature [Master’s dissertation, Brigham University]. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/84/
Drout, M. D. (Ed.). (2006). JRR Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and critical assessment. New York, NY: Routledge.
Fahlen, A. (2016). Racial issues in Middle-Earth: A postcolonial perspective on J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Unpublished manuscript, Karlstads Universitet, Karlstad, Sweden.
Farrell, E. (2009). Race, language, and morality: Does Tolkien’s middle-earth promote a racial myth? [Master’s dissertation, Pittsburgh University]. http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/7806/
Flectcher, L. (Ed.). (2016). Popular Fiction and Spatiality: Reading Genre Settings. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Fletcher, L. (2016). Introduction. In L. Fletcher (Ed.), Fiction and Spatiality: Reading Genre Settings (pp. 1-8). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gaiman, N. (2006) Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. New York, NY: HarperCollins
Greene, D. (1996). Higher argument: Tolkien and the tradition of vision, epic and prophecy. Mythlore. Retrieved June 20, 2020, from
https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol21/iss2/10/
Hakkarainen, S. (2015). The land of shadow, reading Mordor in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: A geopolitical Threat or the suppressed other? [Master’s dissertation, Tampere University]. https://core.ac.uk/display/250136463?recSetID=
Hoiem, E. M. (2005). World creation as colonization: British imperialism in “Aldarion and Erendis”. Tolkien Studies, 2, 75-92. 10.1353/tks.2005.0020
Jackson, R. (2009). Fantasy: The literature of subversion. New York, NY: Routledge.
James, E., & Mendlesohn, F. (Eds.). (2012). The Cambridge companion to fantasy literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space ( D. Nicholson- Smith, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. (Original work published in 1974)
Liebherr, L. (2012). Reimagining Tolkien: A Post-colonial Perspective on The Lord of the Rings [Unpublished Doctoral dissertation]. Limerick University.
Mitchell, P., & Stadler, J. (2011). Redrawing the Map. In R. T. Tally (Ed.), Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies(pp. 29-47). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Peiβl, C. (2014). The construction of evil in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. [Master’s dissertation, Karl-Franzens University]. http://unipub.uni-graz.at/urn:nbn:at:at-ubg:1-62797
Rearick, A. (2004). Why is the only good Orc a dead Orc? The dark face of racism examined in Tolkien's world. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 50(4), 861-874. https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.2005.0008
Rumsby, J. H. (2017). Otherworldly others: Racial representation in fantasy literature [Master’s dissertation, Montreal University]. https://core.ac.uk/reader/159485560
Said, E. W. (1992). The question of Palestine. New York, NY: Vintage Books
Said, E. (2004). Orientalism, 1977. London, UK: Penguin
Said, E. W. (2012). Culture and imperialism. New York, NY: Vintage Book
Tally, R. T. (2010). Let us now praise famous Orcs: simple humanity in Tolkien's inhuman creatures. Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles
Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature. Retrieved June 20, 2020, from
https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol29/iss1/3/
Tally, R.T. (Ed.). (2011). Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tally, R. T. (2013). Spatiality. Newyork, NY: Routledge.
Tally, R. T. (2015). The Geocritical Legacies of Edward W. Said. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tally, R. T. (2016). Tolkien’s Geopolitical Fantasy: Spatial Narrative in The Lord of the Rings. In L. Fletcher (Ed.), Fiction and Spatiality: Reading Genre Settings (pp. 125-140). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1991). The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the first part of The Lord of the Rings. London, UK: Grafton.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (2000). The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. H. Carpenter & C. Tolkien (Eds.). Boston, US: Houghton Mifflin.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (2001). The Two Towers: Being the second part of The Lord of the Rings (film tie-in ed.). London, UK: Grafton.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (2006) The Monsters and the Critics And Other Essays, ed. Tolkien, C.,
London: Harper Collins
Tolkien, J. R. R. (2007). The Return of the King: Being the third part of The Lord of the Rings. London, UK: Harper Collins Publishers.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (2009). The Hobbit. London, UK: Harper Collins E-books. Retrieved from https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780007322602/the-hobbit/
Tolkien, J. R. R. (2013). The Silmarillion (C. Tolkien, Ed.). London, UK: Harper Collins Publishers.
Van Vuuren, G. L. J. (2014). Negotiating a new cultural space: aspects of fantasy in contemporary South African youth literature. [Master’s dissertation, Pretoria University]. https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/50628
Ward, A. (2011). Realising the Dream: The story of Epic Fantasy [Doctoral dissertation, Flinders University]. https://flex.flinders.edu.au/file/fbc25d30-7244-4f99-8a99-1e22051a1ab0/1/Thesis-Ward-2011.pdf
Werber, N. (2005). Geo- and biopolitics of Middle-earth: A German reading of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. New Literary History, 36(2), 227-246. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2005.0039
Westphal, B. (2011a). Foreword. In R. T. Tally (Ed.), Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies( pp. ix-xv). New Yotk, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Westphal, B. (2011b). Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Space (R.T. Tally, Trans.). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. (original work published in 2007)
.Young, H. (2016). Race and popular fantasy literature: Habits of whiteness. New York, NY: Routledge.
Published
2021-05-05
How to Cite
Sajid, E. (2021). Locating the other: a geocriticaldeliberation On tolkien’s middle-earth. International Journal on Orange Technologies, 3(5), 143-155. Retrieved from https://journals.researchparks.org/index.php/IJOT/article/view/1871
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Articles
Copyright (c) 2021 Eesha Sajid
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
