Discipline And Resistance-an Interpretation Of Libra From The Perspective Of Foucault’s Power Theory

For half a century, the seven traumatic seconds of Kennedy assassination hashaunted in the memory of Americans. In1988，the twenty-iftfh anniversary of thisevent, Don DeLillo published Libra, who is not aimed to chase the historical truth butto reveal how this event happened though the combination of fiction and history.DeLillo reexamines the inlfuential events of American politics and society in the1950s and1960s，and unravel the invisible relation between individual constructionand power spectrum.Foucault is one of the greatest philosophers and thinkers in20th century. On thebasis of Micheal Foucault’s power theory, this paper is aimed to explore thedisciplinary American society, and analyze the specific suppressive powers in thepower spectrum of Libra, which is the disciplinary power represented by the prison,the knowledge power represented by books，mass media and spiritual supervisors, anddiscourse power represented by American government and official report. Those threekinds of powers construct the ideology and behavior of individual, inspire individualto resist and to capture power, which is subjectivization. On one hand, DeLillo mocksthe ofifcial historical truth--Warren Commission Report. On the other hand, DeLillocondemns the captivity and discipline of individual imposed by the ideology of ColdWar period, and exposes the paradox of American democrat society though thecontradiction between civil liberty and national interest.This thesis consists of an introduction, three major chapters and a conclusion. Thefirst chapter respectively briefs Don DeLillo，Libra，and the literature review as wellas the framework of this thesis. The second chapter elaborates the research method ofthis thesis~Foucault’s theory of power, including power and subject. The thirdchapter offers an overall picture of the disciplinary society and power struggles inLibra. Moreover，the thesis focuses on how the power shapes and constructs theindividual. The fourth chapter expounds conspirators of Kennedy assassination,Oswald and Ruby’s resistance to American hegemony, and believes the violent resistance is doomed to fail. The last chapter summarizes this thesis by pointing outthat DeLillo believes, the real murder of Kennedy is the hostile social environment inthe Cold War period, rather than any speciifc individual, which is the very hidden factin the Warren Commission Report.