A Foucaultian Study Of Beloved

Toni Morrison is the first Afro-American female to win Nobel Prize forLiterature, who plays an undeniable part in the world literary circles. Writing fromunique perspective, she focuses on the African-Americans in slavery, unveiling thepractice of the dominant power and its effects on the suppressed class. Her fifth novelBeloved not only draws global attention but also brings her great honors. In fact, as atribute to those who died of slavery, Beloved discloses how the slave powerdisciplines, manipulates and tyrannizes the Afro-Americans. The previous studiesmainly emphasize the distinct narrative techniques, the various characters, thenewfangled writing arrangement or the mixed language style, but overlook theresearch about the disciplinary power in slavery.This thesis, adopting Foucault’s power-related theories, tries to explore the roleof power in the thematic construction of Beloved. With the constitution,implementation and deconstruction of slave power taking priority, it attempts toanalyze how power overtly disciplines the black, and how the oppressed implicitlyresists and undermines it in return. This paper is made up of five parts. Introductionbriefly demonstrates Toni Morrison and her novels, the overseas and domestic studiesof Beloved, the main ideas of Foucault’s theories, the significance of this dissertationand the research questions. Chapter one traces the building of Panopticon, withSouthern village and Northern city taken as examples to show how theAfro-Americans are shackled in space. Chapter Two centers on the connection amongpower, body, discourse as well as knowledge, mainly discussing how the black areturned into beings of docile bodies, silenced speech and distorted truth. Chapter Threeseeks to show the marginal group’s subversion of power and their final obtainment ofsubjectivity. The last part comes to the conclusion. Morrison integrates her in-depthconcern for the marginal group and her reflection on power into Beloved, with theattempts to make the marginal reassert and thus propel the society forward.