Truth and surveillance : a Foucauldian analysis of Tolkien and Rowling

Abstract

As popularity in Fantasy and High Fantasy novels rocketed during the last decade, academics reinforced the notion that the reason for this popularity stems from the genre's ability to parallel realities from our real contemporary life. Parallel realities in secondary, imaginary worlds that can be looked upon and analyzed with a fresher perspective away from the constraints of life around us. This dissertation verifies this notion of the fantastic by extracting parallel realities on the subject of power as analyzed by Michel Foucault, from two High Fantasy novels; J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. As Michel Foucault states that power in contemporary societies stems from institutions that employ several exercises like discipline through surveillance, truth and discourse, this dissertation dedicates a chapter to each exercise and extracts parallel methods from the two high fantasy novels mentioned in order to reaffirm the common realities between our world and the imaginary worlds of the Fantasy and High Fantasy genre.