ABSTRACT

Utopian literature is a literature of interfaces, as it is a discursive space in which countless modes and genres meet and converse. Utopia’s shadow, dystopia, is ‘a lens through which we filter historical reality’, and dystopian discourses have enabled productive and critical scrutiny of the excesses of modern history, although their role in perceiving the interconnectedness of political enormities is still developing. This article utilises dystopia as an interface for comparing the speculative representation of oppressive and destructive political actions in the form of totalitarianism and imperialist colonial policy. It will make a case study of this in the revisions from 1934 to the late 1950s of the dystopian Númenor narratives of J.R.R. Tolkien, which engage with themes of totalitarian and colonial subjugation. This will demonstrate how dystopian representation enhances understanding of totalitarianism and imperialism as interrelated phenomena.

摘要

乌托邦文学是关于界面的文学，因为它是一个无数模式和流派相遇和交谈的话语空间。乌托邦的影子，反乌托邦是“我们过滤历史现实的一个镜头”，而反乌托邦的话语对现代历史的过剩进行了生产性和批判性的审查，尽管它们在感知政治上的相互联系方面的作用仍在发展。本文利用反乌托邦作为界面，以极权主义和帝国主义殖民政策的形式比较压迫性和破坏性政治行动的投机性表现。它将在1934年至1950年代后期对JRR Tolkien的反乌托邦努曼诺尔叙事的修订中进行案例研究，该叙事涉及极权主义和殖民统治的主题。