A spatial reading of terry Pratchett's Going Postal: Power dynamics, social relations, and fantasy in the city of Ankh-morpork

The work of Terry Pratchett, a prominent fantasy fiction writer of the contemporary world, enriches modern fantasy literature, not only because of its intertextuality but also because of its unique imaginary realm, the Discworld, offering a possibility of experiencing the real and the unreal in an alternative socio-spatial dimension. This study approaches Pratchett's Going Postal (2004), the first of a trilogy in the Discworld series widely known as the Moist von Lipwig series, centered on the protagonist's experiences in the Discworld from a spatial perspective. Within the framework of recent theories of space by Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, and Edward W. Soja, this study analyzes the relationship between the characters and their surroundings to reveal how power dynamics, social interactions, and fantastical experiences manifest in space. For this purpose, the study scrutinizes how the city's Patrician, Lord Havelock Vetinari and Reacher Gilt, utilize public spaces such as the Post Office and the telegraph system to claim over the city. Moreover, Moist von Lipwig's relational interaction with the Post Office to reconstruct it as an active public service and the citizens' letter writing in the Post Office constitute a dynamic space that extends beyond its material qualities. Finally, Moist's interaction with the visions of the undelivered letters in the Post Office and the fantastic incidents in the Unseen University stimulate his transformation from a criminal into an upstanding citizen. Hence, the real and imagined spaces in Going Postal are revealed to have a transformative power over their occupants.