Discipline And Resistance:A Foucauldian Interptretation Of Heir To The Glimmering World

Cynthia Ozick is a preeminent Jewish female writer in America who always attaches great importance to the living conditions of the marginalized Jewish immigrants in American society and Jewish women’s experiences under Jewish patriarchy.Heir to the Glimmering World reveals the Mitwissers’ struggle in American society and the complicated relationships among various characters.Present critiques on the novel mainly focus on writing skills,themes and characters.However,disciplinary powers and resistances are also of great scholarly importance.This thesis intends to apply Foucault’s power theory to explore exclusive discipline,patriarchal discipline,and resistances to reveal the Jewish patriarchal family’s plight in American society,Jewish females’ plight under patriarchy,and Ozick’s view about it.American society’s marginalizing discipline on Professor and his family and their failed resistance against it indicate that a Jewish patriarchal family that insists on preserving Jewish identity and refuses to change cannot be free from being marginalized.The society’s deprivation of Elsa’s scientific discourse and Rudolf Mitwissser’s bodily and spiritual disciplines on females reveal females’ plight of losing discourse and losing physical and mental autonomy under patriarchy.Females practice “care of self” successfully resisting against patriarchal power and integrating the family into American society implies that only by breaking through the traditional Jewish patriarchal discipline and accepting the impact and collision of external culture,can Jewish women and their family get rid of being marginalized and successfully blend into American society,thus truly becoming the "heir” to the world.