The purpose of this study is to analyze how hierarchy in both ethnicity and gender is portrayed in the novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton. I will look on this utopian novel about Shangri-La and see for whom it is a utopia. I have also analyzed in a psychological perspective why the European men with an experience with war likes the visit in Shangri-La when other people in the novel don’t like it.
I have used postcolonial, feministic and psychological perspective to see for whom the Shangri-La is a utopia. I have discussed the concept of utopia, it’s both a literary genre and it’s also, the term for an ideal society.
My result is that the fictive place Shangri-La is a utopia for the men, specially the European men, with a war experience.