Reviewing Bi Feiyu’s "Female Novel" Based On Body/Power Theory Of Michel Foucault

In this paper, the author chose Bi Feiyu’s “female novel” to study, based on body/power theory of French philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault is one of the world’smost influential scholars in20th century.He repeatedly explained the political functionof the body. He chose power, body and sexual discourse and so on to reveal the truth ofhuman existence. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault not only saw the body as aphysiological gender-specific body, but also a machine which was able to createeconomic value and social benefits, and an entity which could continue to be shaped inhistory. The women favored by Bi Feiyu were exactly the ones who restricted by thepower relations, such as Xiao Yanqiu, Yumi, Yuxiu, Yuyang... They struggle in societywere due to the power is omnipresent. Power intervenes in the women’s individual lifenot because of outside pressure, but internalizing into a desire of themselves. Theyconsciously accepted the discipline of power. Disciplinary power is gentle, humane,but also insidious. They involved in this conspiracy and power, could not get away,giving dying kicks. The mechanisms of power with the trivial disciplinary technologytrained their bodies repeatedly in order to change their behaviors, inevitably createdsome “docile bodies" and obedient crowds who have no ability to create. In order tonot reject by this “docile bodies”, they must continue to change themselves, untilwithout any characteristics. And those who dare to adhere to the self is bound to bepunished, the community will not allow an exception exists. The females under BiFeiyu’s pen are experiencing this fate, and on their stage of life, the interpretation oftheir selves is to continue to compromise on society and no compromise means no wayout. Bi Feiyu’s women are beautiful, but also are tragic. They have beautiful bodies,and after the beautiful bodies consumed, they still can not escape the cruel fate of thesanctions. In short, this paper attempts to use Foucault’s body/power theory to furtherresearch Bi Feiyu’s female fictions.