Women’s Dilemma Under Micro-power

Elfriede Jelinek(1946-),winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004,is an important representative of German literature in the late 20 th century.Her works show the profound issues of gender politics in the contemporary world with distinct feminist themes and post-modernist style.Her masterpiece The Piano Teacher is the concentrated embodiment of her creative style,and also a perfect sample to explore her female consciousness to examine the current situation of women.Starting from the specific text analysis,this thesis focuses on the main characters of the novel,combines Michel Foucault’s micro theory of power with Elfriede Jelinek’s unique writing,to explore the survival dilemma of women living in the power network dominated by male power,that is,the discipline and control of female body by male power culture.Re-examining the internal division of women and the alienation of women themselves caused by the internalized "male gaze" in this situation.Finally,combining with Elfriede Jelinek’s own writing,this paper explores how Elfriede Jelinek realizes her resistance to male hegemony culture through the text,such as disenchantment of male characters,subversion of mother myth,creation of rebellious female characters and facing up to the autonomy of female desire.The women in Elfriede Jelinek’s works all face a similar situation,that is,they are in a social and cultural norm that represses and distorts human nature and mercilessly deprives people of their physical and psychological needs.While severely condemning the society and culture in which she lives,Jelinek did not reserve the false innocent status for women.She realized that women,as victims,are also becoming the executors of power,and the biggest victims and accomplices under the patriarchal system are exactly women themselves.Therefore,in Jelinek’s works,in the love competition between men and women,and in the control and anti-control between women and women,power transcends the limitations of sex and gender and directly acts on everyone,and no matter men or women can escape from it.All of the above support Foucault’s micro power theory: people are always in the power network,always fighting for power,but they can’t get salvation from the struggle.Elfriede Jelinek’s revelation of the plight of women realizes the criticism of all kinds of power desires in the whole civilized society.It is pointed out that women’s liberation is not by simply rejecting men,not by fighting against men,but by fighting against the social institutions and ideas that oppress women and men in a visible and invisible way.It transcends the struggle between the genders and goes straight to the patterns of civilization behind the genders.This gives Elfriede Jelinek’s work more depth and researchability.