The Fate Of The Other

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) is one of the greatest writers in American literature. Babbitt, published in 1922, critically tells a story about the hero, named Babbitt, who can not bear the depression and confinement performed by the Subject, gets marginalized as the Other, and then betrays family, society, and traditions for fighting against the Subject but ends in vain and conforms to the society. It reveals the power relation between the Subject and the Other in the twentieth century, and the Other is doomed to be manipulated by the Subject.Based on Babbitt and a series of other works, Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, which absorbed much attention. The readers and the critics highly commented on the realistic satirical writing skill, while no one took attention to the power relation in the novel and its profound and rich meaning.In this thesis, Michel Foucault's power theory would be employed to explore Lewis'portrayal of the Other in Babbitt. Foucault has cited the power theory to explain the formation and the change of the power relation in his many great pieces, such as Knowledge and Power, Madness and Civilization, and Discipline and Punish, etc. In Babbitt, Lewis described the typical products under the"power relation"and their life condition and experience. Applying Foucault's perspective to the novel, this thesis intends to reveal the power relation through the analysis of"the marginalization of the Other,"the revolts of the Other and"the conformity of the Other, which aims to fully expose the power relation between the Subject and the Other in America of the 1920s.This thesis consists of three body chapters. Chapter one studies the relationship between the Subject's confining exerted upon the Other and the Other's marginalization resulting from such repression.Chapter two concentrates on the relationship between the Subject's imposition of silencing upon the Other and the Other's revolts, such as dream, sexuality, and decampment against such subjugationChapter three concerns the relationship between the Subject's discipline upon the Other and the Other's conformity based on such normalization.Based on the analysis above, it comes to the conclusion that power relation exists everywhere, and the Other can not avoid the fate to be manipulated by the"Subject."...