Monitor, Discipline And Punish

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) is the first American winner of Nobel Prize for Literature. In Lewis’s novel It Can’t Happen Here (1935), he incisively and vividly portrayed the lives of American intellectuals under the ruling of fascism and middle class’s tragedy life controlled by totalitarianism. Based on the historical context of American society in1930s, this thesis aims to explore the monitoring, disciplining and punishing in It Can t Happen Here from the perspective of the mechanism of power, which will shed light on how China should face terrorism and totalitarianism properly.The introduction part of this thesis contains the introduction of Sinclair Lewis, his literary achievements, the review of current researches on It Can’t Happen Here both abroad and in China and the structure of this thesis. On the perspective of the monitoring mechanism, Chapter One interprets how Panopticon can be used in the monitoring mechanism of the American society ruled by President Windrip to realize ubiquitous monitoring and hierarchical individuals’role such as warden, turnkey and prisoner in the mechanism. On the perspective of the mechanism of disciplining, the second chapter elaborates how knowledge/power participate in and are used in the mechanism of discipline, dissects how the American fascists represented by Windrip produce a series of social norms by manipulating mass media, controlling religious people, violating normal education and drawing the intellectuals over to their side, and expounds the influence of the disciplinary power on stratified individuals: disciplining or being disciplined. Chapter Three focuses on the punishment of the fascist regime represented by Windrip and the tragic life of the protagonist Doremus and others. It analyzes how the dictators punish the dissidents by tracking and monitoring, carrying out violence and establishing concentration camps, and explores the life of Doremus and others under Windrip’s regime:losing the freedom of speech, the right to learn freely and the right to work freely.Through the perspective of the mechanism of power, this thesis explores the special historical context of America in1930s. Lewis vividly portrayed the life of American intellectuals represented by Doremus under the ruling of fascism, especially the tragedies caused by the rigorous monitoring, disciplining and punishing and rang alarm bells for people all over the world.