Perceiving A Decaying Civilization Through The Disciplined Prisoner

D.H.Lawrence led a dispute life and his works received enormous controversial criticisms.However,Lawrence is undeniably a genius as well as a seriously responsible one,loyal to the nature of life,composing with an attitude of high seriousness and intensity,and exposing truth of modern society.In modern society,instinctive and independent living beings are increasingly being materialized and mechanized,human natures tamed.Both Lawrence and Michael Foucault come to this truth.It would be meaningful to analyze Lawrence's novels by Foucault's concepts of the net of power and theory of discipline and punishment.Foucault believes it is the system of power that produces and imposes disciplinary power upon individuals and achieves the taming of human beings and ultimately the production of mechanized bodies,“machines”.In accordance with Foucault's theory of discipline and punishment,the thesis purports to argue that Lawrence presents a decaying civilization by revealing how human beings are tamed and transformed into working machines.This paper consists of five parts.Introduction part includes literature review about Lawrence's works and Foucault's theory of discipline and punishment,and puts forward the significance of this thesis.Chapter one mainly explores the concrete ways of discipline in The Rainbow,Women in Love,and Lady Chatterley's Lover and analyses how exactly these institutions achieve taming.Chapter two chiefly focus on what kinds of effect punishment has upon obedient and disobedient characters in the novels.Chapter three discusses how colliers are physically and mentally deformed,transformed into working machines.In the end,there is a terse conclusion about this thesis,mainly emphasizing Lawrence's revelation of a decaying civilization of human beings through docile characters in his novels.