مهسا هاشمی

The Lord of the Rings is one of the most popular British novels. This novel did not only bring eternal fame for its author, J.R.R Tolkien, but also a wave of negative criticism. These critiques mainly blamed Tolkien for the depiction of his female characters, having only a few important female characters, critics criticized Tolkien for limiting the female characters to domestic activities and even called him a misogynist. In this thesis, through a feminist psychoanalytic reading of the novel, I am going to answer these critiques and demonstrate the author’s positive view of femininity. In order to accomplish this aim, I am going to employ some of the most significant feminist psychoanalyst theories of Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. Since the works of these two employed theorists are based on Lacan, some of his ideas are going to be employed, too. I aim to depict how Tolkien’s world represents phallocentrism in an unfavorable manner, reading the Ring as Lacanian phallus. The destructive nature of phallocentrism and phallic value system is evident in this work. I will go on to show how the novel resists and reprimands phallocentrism and how it reveals femininity and feminine value system in its human female characters as well as in other races, places, nature and even in some of its male characters. The purpose is to demonstrate Tolkien’s view about femininity and masculinity, and to clear the misogynistic blames that have been ascribed to him for so long.