Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Negative Estrangement: Fantasy And Race In The Drow And Drizzt Do’Urden, Steven Holmes

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This essay introduces the concept of negative estrangement to help understand current cultural interventions into the norms of depicting fantasy races. First, this essay builds on Shklovsky’s concept of estrangement to describe the literary practice of negative estrangement, wherein artists craft “more evil” foes based on hybridized amalgamations of stereotypes to create antipathy toward a subject, be it monster or fantasy race. This practice is sometimes used in service of confronting the issue of race and racism, despite seeming to reify or rearticulate racist stereotypes.

This essay builds on Tolkien’s argument in favor of creating “more evil” foes to exemplify …

The Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Of Frodo Baggins, Bruce D. Leonard

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings accurately portrayed the signs and symptoms of what is currently labeled Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Frodo’s condition logically follows his experiences of less than a year in the War of the Ring. Tolkien did not have access to a diagnostic manual but apparently used his keen observations from both World Wars to inform his narrative. No fantasy is employed to describe Frodo condition after the Ring is destroyed. His condition is that of a vet with PTSD. Evidence from the History of Middle-earth demonstrates the deliberate steps taken to show Frodo as …