A Foucauldian Reading Of Female Characters In Byatt’s Possession

A. S. Byatt (1936--) is commonly acknowledged as one of the most original postmodern authors in Britain. Her most influential novel Possession, which won 1990 Booker Prize, tells a story of two modern scholars Roland and Maud who are bent on questing of a secret relationship between Henry Ash, a notable Victorian poet, and Christabel LaMotte, a woman who writes mythological poems.This romance compares and contrasts characters from both the Victorian era and the modern times through the revelation of the characters’ similar fate though they live very different lives. This thesis aims to analyze the process of female characters’ subjectivity formation and their destinies in Possession under the theoretical guidance of Foucault’s theory. Foucault’s subjectivity formation theory includes subjectivity formation through power, sexuality and techniques of the self. The first way, that is subjectivity formation through power, is an outside-in disciplinary process, while the rest two are an inside-out formation, which is Foucault’s introspection to his early oppressing subjectivity formation through the domain of power.Based on the logical approach of Foucault’s theories, the thesis firstly probes into LaMotte and Maud’s sufferings under the disciplinary power of patriarchal gaze in different times. The research finds that women’s behaviors are disciplined by the patriarchal gaze and the rules which are created by men to constrain women are internalized by women themselves as their own desire. The confrontation of LaMotte and Maud against the disciplinary gaze makes them independent, confident and fearless to power. Secondly, the thesis discusses the subjectivity formation of three female characters, Blanche, LaMotte and Ellen, through "sexuality". Blanche and LaMotte’s homosexual orientation has great effects on their subjectivity formation: living as lesbians in the nineteenth century, they are faced with ambient discrimination and persecution; thus it leads to assertiveness and braveness in their personalities. As to Ellen, her dyspareunia syndrome caused by Ash greatly inflicts her subjectivity shaping, resulting in her silent and compliant personality. Thirdly, the thesis discusses female characters subjectivity formation through Foucault’s theories of the techniques of the self in terms of self-writing, asceticism and parrhesia. LaMotte’s epistolary relationship with Ash changes her sexual orientation; Val’s former "ascetic life" paves the way for her growth from being self-abasement and compliant to confident and independent.The thesis analyzes three ways of subject formation of the female characters in Possession:the peripheral disciplinary power, the cultivation of sexuality and the techniques of the self. It is under the joint forces of these three aspects that women’s distinctive subjectivities are gradually formed.