Cora’s Awakening

The Underground Railroad is a novel about slavery before the Civil War in the United States.Colson Whitehead,the author of this novel had worked on this novel for 16 years before he finally presented it to readers in 2016.The novel has received rave reviews since it was published.There have been a number of novels about slavery before,the most well-known novels among which include The Colour Purple,Beloved,and The Bluest Eye,etc,but the author brings the subject of slavery back to the public once again,mainly because slavery still has an ingrained influence on contemporary America.Though The Underground Railroad has not come out for long,many scholars have analyzed it from the perspective of trauma theory,narrative strategy,and racism,among many others.Few scholars,however,have studied this novel from the perspective of Foucault’s power and discourse theory by now,so this thesis attempts to use this theory to analyze the protagonist Cora’s awakening process,which provides a new perspective for the interpretation of this novel.This thesis is composed of five chapters.The first chapter is a brief introduction of the author Colson Whitehead and his work The Underground Railroad,the current research at home and abroad,and the theory of power and discourse used in the analysis of this novel.The second chapter mainly analyzes the oppression of Cora’s power and her ignorance,that is,what kind of oppression of power has Cora suffered,and the ignorance that leads Cora to remain silent in the face of oppression.The third chapter mainly analyzes the process of Cora gradually gaining the power of discourse through acquiring knowledge.The fourth chapter mainly analyzes how Cora obtains the power of other aspects through obtaining the power of discourse,and finally gets the real freedom and realizes the process of awakening.Chapter Five is the conclusion.Through the analysis of the former four chapters,this thesis concludes that the analysis of Cora’s awakening process is inseparable from the discussion of relationship between power and discourse,and they are basically consistent.Meanwhile,this thesis is of great theoretical significance for the in-depth study of Foucault’s theory of power and discourse and its application in text analysis,as well as of certain practical guiding significance for social development.It reminds people that knowledge plays a crucial role in social life.Knowledge is the foundation of gaining power of discourse,and power of discourse is the basic means to gain otherpower.Power ultimately determines people’s status in social life.In addition,the conclusion also points out the limitations and room for development in this thesis.