A Foucauldian Interpretation Of Bigger In Native Son

Richard Wright is one of the most prominent African American writers in the twentieth century American literary field. Richard’s masterpiece, Native Son, was published in1940and regarded as the landmark of African American literature. After its publication, this novel received great attention of many ordinary readers and critics. Irving Hawe, the famous American critic, once said that "The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed for ever"This thesis gives a detailed and theoretical analysis of Bigger in the novel and attempts to interpret the operating mechanism of disciplinary power in American society under the guide of Michel Foucault’s power theory. The society of Native Son is a prison-like disciplinary society permeated with power relations and resistance. The society of Native Son is a prison-like disciplinary society where omnipresent power controls and reforms Bigger. Under the panoptical mechanism, Bigger unconsciously behaves according to social norms, and has been practiced to be a disciplined body. Bigger’s misery is the natural product of the disciplinary society. Though disciplinary power is powerful resistance cannot be eliminated from the disciplinary society. When the function of surveillance is inactive, in order to maintain social order, punishment is inevitable. In such society, Bigger, for his behavior and mind go against the norms, violates disciplinary power, which provides good reasons for his being punished.As a whole, the thesis is composed of three major parts, including the introduction, main frame and the conclusion.It begins with a brief introduction of Richard Wright and Native Son, and goes on with literature reviews and comments on this novel from domestic and overseas academic spheres, and the structure of the thesis.The main frame falls into four chapters:Chapter one expounds Michel Foucault’s main concepts of disciplinary power. In Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, he introduces two concepts, discipline and punish, and implies that the modern society exactly resembles a disciplinary prison. Chapter two briefly explains Bigger’s suffering in disciplinary society. Chapter three explores how the three disciplinary techniques, hierarchal observation, normalizing judgment and the examination, are conducted in Native Son normalizing Bigger and to maintain social order. Chapter four analyzes Bigger’s resistance to disciplinary power and the punishment on him for non-observance.The conclusion part gives a summary of the whole thesis. In prison-like disciplinary society, no one can escape from being surveilled and punished. Anyone who departs from the norms must suffer severe punishment. Bigger’s tragedy verifies that, in the panoptical mechanism, none could escape from disciplinary power.