The Color Purple And Power Discourse—Foucauldian Reading Of The Color Purple

Alice Walker is the first black female winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her long story The Color Purple.Once published in 1982,it has received extensive attention from critics and common readers.Most of these studies focus on the theme,the technique of narration,the writing skills,the language and so on.These aspects indeed merit attention,but the disciplinary power and the resistance to the power should also be explored.This thesis is going to explore how the operating mechanism of disciplinary power in the society set in the novel disciplines people like Celie in the society of The Color Purple by utilizing Michel Foucault's theory of disciplinary power.Power provokes resistance.Therefore,this thesis is also going to analyze resistance to the power and its consequences.The body part includes four chapters.The chapter one Introduction is going to give a brief presentation to Alice Walker,The Color Purple and the literary review of The Color Purple in recent years.It also contains a brief introduction of Foucault's power theory.Chapter two is going to illustrate the miserable fates of black women in disciplinary society.There is the similarity between Foucault and Walker,both of whom focus on the predicament and fate of the marginalized.Foucault focuses on the criminals in an isolated environment which is like a huge prison,and Walker cares about the black women who are marginalized at home.They are all under the invisible but ubiquitous power.Socials codes on women are a kind of knowledge made by men.The aim of the disciplinary power is to guarantee the observation of social codes.By analyzing the miserable fate of Celie,this chapter reveals that sexual discourse is to eliminate black women 's thoughts and personalities.Chapter three analyzes the influence of panopticism on black women in the society of The Color Purple.This chapter explores how disciplinary power is wielded.Under omnipresent “eye of power ”,black women are trained to behave humbly and obediently.Chapter four studies characters ' resistance to and the way out of the disciplinary society.The rebellious Sofia fights against disciplinary power with violence,but she ends with failure.Walker finds the final way out by singing,that's women should make their voice heard.The last part comes to the conclusion that society of The Color Purple is a disciplinary one.In the patriarchal society,men possess the discourse.Women have no choice but to accept and internalize social codes on them.The eye of power is omnipresent in the society.Women are captured and observed at home,gradually,they become their own observers.That's how the disciplinary power is expanded to the whole Society.“Where there is oppression,there is resistance ”.Resistance is inevitable but revolt against violence with violence is not desirable.Black women should have discourse.The novel reveals Walker's sincere concern for the living condition of people who are marginalized in modern society permeated with power relations.