Název: Elven chora : feminine space and power in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
Zdrojový dokument: Brno studies in English. 2023, roč. 49, č. 1, s. 129-145
Rozsah
129-145
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Trvalý odkaz (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2023-1-7
Trvalý odkaz (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/digilib.78902
Type: Článek
Jazyk
Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Přístupová práva
otevřený přístup
Upozornění: Tyto citace jsou generovány automaticky. Nemusí být zcela správně podle citačních pravidel.
Abstrakt(y)
The Lord of the Rings has earned Tolkien high praise as well as a reputation for misogyny due to its scarce and marginal female characters. A rather neglected aspect of Tolkien's trilogy which challenges this notion is the femininity embedded within the story and its significance in the value system of the novel. Despite depicting fewer female human characters, Tolkien has created a race which is dominantly characterized by feminine attributes: the race of the Elves. Questioning the accusations of misogyny through a feminist psychoanalytic reading, this study uses Kristeva's chora to recognize the Elven lands as feminine space dominated by the semiotic rather than the symbolic, and Irigaray's notion of puissance to unearth the celebration of feminine power in the novels' depiction of the Elves. The careful consideration of the Elves, their society and their lands demonstrate the preference for the feminine which is in contrast with the phallic.
Reference
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[3] Chance, Jane (2016) Tolkien, Self and Other: "This Queer Creature". New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
[4] Coutras, Lisa (2016) Tolkien's Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
[5] Eden, Bradford Lee (2022) Music. A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien. 2nd edition. Edited by Stuart D. Lee. Wiley Blackwell.
[6] Enright, Nancy (2008) Tolkien's females and the defining of power. In: Bloom, Harold (ed.) Bloom's Modern Critical Views: J.R.R. Tolkien. New York: InfoBase, 171–186.
[7] Fisher, Joseph (2007) Phial. In: Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.) J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 507–508.
[8] France, Sarah (2019) Walking out of dualisms: material ecofeminism in Olivia Laing's to the River. Journal of International Women's Studies 20 (4), 39–51.
[9] Grosz, Elizabeth (1990) Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction. New York: Routledge.
[10] Haas, Lynda (1993) Review: of waters and women: the philosophy of Luce Irigaray. Hypatia 8 (4), 150–159.
[11] Harrison, William (2013) Éowyn the Unintended: The Caged Feminine and Gendered Space in The Lord of the Rings. The University of British Columbia, M.A. Thesis. Accessed March 20, 2019. https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0074293.
[12] Hatcher, Melissa McCrory (2007) Finding woman's role in 'The Lord of the Rings. Mythlore 25 (3/4), 43–54.
[13] Hill, Rebecca (2008) Interval, sexual difference: Luce Irigaray and Henry Bergson. Hypatia, 23 (1), 119–131.
[14] Homer, Sean (2005) Jacques Lacan. London: Routledge.
[15] Innaci, Yacubo and Abdul Hakeem (2020) Feminism and transformation: the feminineness and its revolution in J.R. R. Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit'. Mukt Shabd 9 (4), 3404–3408.
[16] Irigaray, Luce (1985a) Speculum of the Other Woman. Translated by Gillian C. Gill, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
[17] Irigaray, Luce (1985b) This Sex Which Is Not One. Translated by Catherine Porter, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University.
[18] Irigaray, Luce (1991) The Irigaray Reader. Edited by Margaret Whitford, Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell.
[19] Irigaray, Luce (1993) Sexes and Genealogies. Translated by Gillian C. Gill, New York: Columbia University Press.
[20] Jaques, Zoë (2013) There and back again: the gendered journey of Tolkien's Hobbits. In: Hunt, Peter (ed.) J. R. R. Tolkien. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 88–105.
[21] Kristeva, Julia (1984 [1974]) Revolution in Poetic Language. Translated by Margaret Waller, New York: Columbia University Press.
[22] Lionarons, Joyce Tally (2013) Of spiders and elves. Mythlore 31 (3), 5–13.
[23] Maddox, Rachel (2018) Flawed and formidable: Galadriel, Éowyn, and Tolkien's inadvertent feminism. Digital Commons@University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Accessed July 15 2021. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=
[24] Madsen, Deborah L. (2000) Feminist Theory and Literary Practice. London: Pluto Press.
[25] Margaroni, Maria (2005) 'The Lost Foundation': Kristeva's semiotic chora and its ambiguous legacy. Hypatia 20 (1), 78–98.
[26] McAfee, Noëlle (2004) Julia Kristeva. London: Routledge.
[27] Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva (2014) Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books Ltd.
[28] Millbank, Alison (2003) 'My Precious': Tolkien's fetishized ting. In: Bassham, Gregory and Eric Bronson (eds.) The Lord of the Rings Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All. Chicago: Open Court, 33–45.
[29] Miller, John (2016) Mapping gender in Middle-earth. Mythlore 34, 133–152.
[30] Partridge, Brenda. (2008) No sex please—we're Hobbits: the construction of female sexuality in The Lord of the Rings. In: Giddings, Robert and Robert Vision (eds.) J. R. R. Tolkien, this Far Land, 179–197.
[31] Ravikumar, N. and R. Chandrasekar (2018) The existence of feminine masculinity in a classic epic fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. International Journal of English and Literature 8 (6), 19–26.
[32] Rawls, Melanie (1984) The feminine principle in Tolkien. Mythlore 10, 5–13.
[33] Rose, Gillian (1995) Distance, surface, elsewhere: a feminist critique of the space of phallocentric self/knowledge. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 13, 761–781.
[34] Schippers, Birgit (2011) Julia Kristeva and Feminist Thought. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
[35] Stanton, Michael N. (2008) Mind, spirit, and dream in the Lord of the Rings. In: Bloom, Harold (ed.) Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations: The Lord of the Rings. New York: InfoBase, 27–36.
[36] Stenberg, Elísabet (2012) 'I Am No Man' The Strength of Women in J.R.R. Tolkien's Major Works. University of Iceland, B.A. Thesis. Accessed September 20, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/1946/11490
[37] Stone, Alison. (2006) Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[38] Tolkien, J.R.R. (2012a [1954]) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. New York: Del Rey.
[39] Tolkien, J.R.R. (2012b [1954]) The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. New York: Del Rey.
[40] Tordebring, Suzzi (2016) Promoting Intercultural Competence through J.J.R. Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings. Høgskolen i Østfold University, M.A. Dissertation. Accessed September 25, 2020. https://hiof.brage.unit.no/hiof-xmlui/handle/11250/2416066?locale-attribute=en
[41] Vaccaro, Christopher (2007) Rings. In: Drout, Michael D.C. (ed.) J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 571–572.