FOLKLORE AS A REFLECTION OF NATIONAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY IN FANTASY FICTION

This article examines the function of folklore as both a reflection and a production of national and cultural identity in contemporary fantasy literature, utilising a comparative analysis of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937) and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (2001). Tolkien uses folklore to create a mythopoeic universe that focusses on cultural continuity, rootedness, and inherited tradition. Gaiman, on the other hand, uses folklore in a postmodern and diasporic way, where identity is broken up, mobile, and based on belief and memory. Utilising theories of cultural memory, nationalism, and myth criticism, this research contends that fantasy fiction serves as a literary domain where folklore is reinterpreted to address issues of belonging, heritage, and power across many historical settings.