An Analysis Of Invisible Man From Perspective Of Discourse Power

Ralph Ellison is the most important American black writer since 1950 s and his masterpiece Invisible Man exerted a great influence on the elimination of racial discrimination and the achievement of racial equality.He presented a faithful and complete picture of the people living at the bottom of the 20th-century American society within the limited space of one novel.The novel mirrors the real living conditions and the internal world of such underprivileged groups in American society at that time.Different scholars and critics has interpreted this novel from different perspectives: some studied the quest for self-identity;some explored the ideology of the society;some analyzed the individual crisis of the Americans;however,there are few studies on the interpretation of the novel from the perspective of discourse power.Therefore,this thesis attempts to interpret the novel from this perspective,in order to get a better understanding the life condition,the discourse power and the awakening of discourse power of the colored people,underdogs and women in American society and to reveal a true and vivid American society.From the perspective of Foucault' s discourse power theory,the author of this thesis combines it with the feminist theory and the social class theory of Marxism.This thesis analyzes three groups of people who have no discourse power in American society.The first group is the male figures marginalized by the mainstream society.Foucault' s discourse power theory is used here to analyze the three black male characters in the novel:under the discourse power control of white people,black males have lost their voice and subjective thoughts,and thus became self-deprecated;in order to be recognized by white people,the black people even deceived themselves and others.The second group lacking discourse power is the female group.Through Beauvoir' s feminist theory,this thesis analyzes several female characters in the novel: under the programming of patriarchal ideology,the identity of females usually revolves around males,they are controlled by male' s discourse power financially and spiritually.Most of the females are voiceless,submissive and helpless beings in society.The third group that lacks discourse power is people at the bottom of the society.From the angle of Marxist social class theory,this thesis explores the unfair distribution of discourse power in American society,which existsnot only between races,genders,but also between classes.All these groups are deprived of their initiative.However,the society is constantly changing,so this thesis also analyzes different degrees of awakening occurring to different social groups by tackling the issue of discourse power shift in a changing society through many examples,in order to present a more complete and accurate picture of the distribution of discourse power in American society.By analyzing the discourse power of several groups,the thesis reveals the mechanism of discourse and power in American society at that time to prove that swayed by the discourse power structure,most Americans lost their discourse power,especially colored people,women and other groups of underdogs.They have become the “other” under the pen of Beauvoir.Further more,this thesis discloses the distribution of discourse power among different ethnic groups,gender groups and classes in American society.It is proved that they are simultaneously executioners manipulated by the discourse power and rebels that have just awakened.But viewed as a group,they still have a long way to go.