Discipline And Resistance:An Interpretation Of 1984 From The Perspective Of Foucault's Power Theory

George Orwell was a well-known and distinguished novelist and critic in the early 20 th century English literature,whose pseudonym was Eric Arthur Blair.His masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four gained a lot of attention from many critics as soon as it was published.As current researches on the novel concentrated on its political orientation and dystopian trend,this thesis aims at interpreting Nineteen Eighty-Four from the perspective of Michel Foucault' s power theory to analyze the ruler's discipline techniques to illustrate the power operation mechanism in this novel.Through a detailed analysis of Winston' s awakening,his resistance against the authorities,his failure to resist and his death penalty,the research aims at revealing the government' s highly centralized power.This thesis also concentrates on authorities' discipline techniques,the ruler controls people's thoughts by reshaping history and making people use Newspeak.He monitors people by telescreen.All these techniques serve for maintaining ruler' s power.These findings indicate that Orwell is deeply concerned about social operative mechanism.Through the deeply research of power operative mechanism of Oceania,this thesis will provide readers a more comprehensive perspective of how Oceania government controls people unconsciously and will help readers to reflect on the relationship between the past and the present.