Reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s Imperialism under Michel Foucault’s Eyes
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The pivotal paradox of the God’s created good world of The Lord of the Rings is that the anti-imperialistic good world is impregnated with the Evil, imperialistic power in itself. Tolkien’s Catholicism and God’s will, which played an essential part in molding his creative world of the good, is nothing more than just one of the possible epistemological discourses, under Michel Foucault’s view. Foucault does not recognize universality which could be adjusted to every entity of so-called history of “the Same”. “The Same” and “the Other”, both are to be formulated only in particular conditions of particular possibility. Tolkien’s homogeneous discourse of anti-imperialism, whether it takes the form of Catholicism or humanitarianism, may not be interpreted as single universal truth to save the Middle-earth. This paper will discuss how Tolkien’s so-called an-imperialism is limited to the history of “the dominant, Same”. While uncovering the diverse strata of Middle-earth one by one from Sauron’s Mordor, through Aragorn’s Gondor and Elrond’s Rivendel, Tom Bombadil’s the Old Forest, and most of all to the Hobbits’ Shire, this paper will reveal The Lord of the Rings which had originally been intended to be read as the history of universal truth, is actually another case of peculiar episteme that is under high possibility of being categorized into “the Other”.
Abstract
The pivotal paradox of the God’s created good world of The Lord of the Rings is that the anti-imperialistic good world is impregnated with the Evil, imperialistic power in itself. Tolkien’s Catholicism and God’s will, which played an essential part in molding his creative world of the good, is nothing more than just one of the possible epistemological discourses, under Michel Foucault’s view. Foucault does not recognize universality which could be adjusted to every entity of so-called history of “the Same”. “The Same” and “the Other”, both are to be formulated only in particular conditions of particular possibility. Tolkien’s homogeneous discourse of anti-imperialism, whether it takes the form of Catholicism or humanitarianism, may not be interpreted as single universal truth to save the Middle-earth. This paper will discuss how Tolkien’s so-called an-imperialism is limited to the history of “the dominant, Same”. While uncovering the diverse strata of Middle-earth one by one from Sauron’s Mordor, through Aragorn’s Gondor and Elrond’s Rivendel, Tom Bombadil’s the Old Forest, and most of all to the Hobbits’ Shire, this paper will reveal The Lord of the Rings which had originally been intended to be read as the history of universal truth, is actually another case of peculiar episteme that is under high possibility of being categorized into “the Other”.
참고문헌 (19)
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