A Reading Of Emma In The Volcano Lover By Foucault's Theory Of Disciplinary Power

Susan Sontag (1633—2004) is a renowned American writer and critic in the twentieth century. Her works have been translated into thirty-two languages, including novels, essays, plays, short stories, and film scripts. Moreover, she is also famous for her ardent activism in the cause of human rights, and leaves many precious spiritual values. For several decades, her works have occupied a place of prominence in literary circles.Sontag's The Volcano Lover (1992), her third novel and also her favorite and most satisfied one, makes her achieve late popular success as a best-selling novelist. The Volcano Lover is a historical romance. Its subject is the infamous love triangle between Sir William Hamilton (the Cavaliere), Emma Hamilton, and Horatio Nelson (the hero), and its central setting is late-eighteenth-century Naples where Hamilton is the British envoy to the court of the Bourbon rulers.Western critics have appreciated Sontag and her works from various perspectives. The academic study at home is rather fragmentary. Generally speaking, Chinese scholars mainly do research on her life experiences and critical theories, yet less on the analysis of her novels. In addition, the studies on The Volcano Lover deal with its modernism, the aesthetic sense, the poetical features and narratology, so it is worthy to have a detailed study of it to broaden the study dimension.This thesis intends to make a detailed and theoretical analysis on the novel from the perspective of Foucault's theory of disciplinary power. The society of The Volcano Lover is a prison-like disciplinary society, in which omnipresent power controls and reforms individuals. The heroine Emma who belongs to the marginalized communities, has been disciplined by her husband and the society. Emma's misery is the natural product of the disciplinary society. The Volcano Lover displays the power of panoptical mechanism, in which women are practiced to be docile. They are deprived of the right to see, and do not see but are always seen. However, resistance can not be eliminated from the disciplinary society. When the function of surveillance is inactive, in order to maintain social order, punishment is inevitable. Emma's tragedy verifies that, in the panoptical mechanism, none could escape from disciplinary power.Besides the introduction and the conclusion, the thesis falls into four chapters. The introduction mainly includes a brief introduction to Susan Sontag and The Volcano Lover, the literature review, and the structure of the thesis.Chapter one expounds Foucault's concept of power and then puts the emphasis on the analysis of disciplinary power.Chapter two briefly presents Emma's suffering in disciplinary society. In such society, disciplinary power operates and regulates people's social and personal life all the time. Under the panoptical mechanism, Emma unconsciously behaves according to social norms, and has been practiced to be a disciplined body.Chapter three is an analysis of Emma's resistance. Disciplinary society is not equal to disciplined society. Although disciplinary power is extremely powerful, resistance can no be eliminated. Emma does not submit to disciplinary power but resist in various ways.Chapter four deals with the punishment on Emma for non-observance. At the heart of disciplinary power functions a small penal mechanism. What is specific of disciplinary penalty is non-observance that does not measure up to the rule and that departs from it. Emma, for her behavior and mind go against the norms, violates disciplinary power, which provides good reasons for her being punished.Through the analyses of Emma's misery in disciplinary society, the conclusion reveals that the society of The Volcano Lover is a prison-like disciplinary society permeated with power relations and resistance. In such society, everyone can not escape from being surveilled and punished. Anyone who departs from the norms must suffer severe punishment. The novel reflects Sontag's deep concern for human's living dilemma and struggle in modern society which is alienated and penetrated with power relations.