Discipline And Subversion:on Representation Of Biopol Itics In El Izabeth Jolley's Works

As a contemporary Australian notable female writer,Elizabeth Jolley's works are awarded for many times.Jolley had been trying to write out life experience and social reality,therein the experience of the World War ? provides her materials in creation such as My Father's Moon,Cabin Fever,George's Wife and An Innocent Gentleman.All her works have found political infiltration in which politics participates more or less,implicitly or explicitly,framing the author's creation;however,hardly had scholars ever paid attention on her sensibility to politics and the influences of biopolitics in her works up to today.This paper will offer a biopolitical approach to her works,attempting to make a tentative conclusion that Elizabeth Jolley in her works tends to blur the binary opposition between the wrong and the true,the authoritative and the unauthorized by deconstructing the authority in politics of war,medicine and sex.Viewing life as a critical entrance to history and social institutions will give us a more convenient way to examine the text.Biopolitics theory draws attention to the political and ideological power of the social system through the anatomy of the body and the praise of life,which can effectively reveal the control force and reaction force that flows in the social system and cultural system.Similarly,from this perspective,we can have a clearer understanding of the symbolic meaning of the characters in Elizabeth Jolley's text and the social and cultural ideology of that time.The construction of interdependence between life and politics can not only restore the"real" scene,but also show Elizabeth Jolley's observation and reflection on the nature of biopolitics.Here,the interaction between life and biopolitics effectively reveal the motivation and context of works' creation.This paper tends to represent biopolitics in her works and explore ways used to criticize and subvert the discipline of biopolitics by analyzing her seven novels and autobiography,revealing implications unknown in her works.The paper consists of three parts:introduction(two chapters),body(four chapters)and conclusion.The introduction part briefly introduces the author's life experience and summarizes the related literature and study at home and abroad,explaining the new and creative meaning and significance of this study.The paper will give a brief review of the theoretical research.The author will review the historical development of biopolitics theory and introduces two famous thinkers on biopolitics who have made outstanding contributions to enrich and develop the theory,namely Foucault Foucault who created the concept of biopower and Giorgio Agamben who put forwarded the notion of "Homo sacer".The main contents of this paper expound the manifestation of biopolitics in Elizabeth Jolley's works,mainly from the four aspects of war politics,medical politics and sexual politics,and subversion and redemption.The third chapter will investigate the nature of war and operation of war system in biopolitics by displaying life condition exposed to the state of exception.Modern states exist in part to wage war,and war is an extreme form of politics.Jolley tended to tell us that all wars are wrong whether they are "just" or "unjust" in her novels Vera's Trilogy and An Innocent Gentlemen.The chapter four will explore the politics of medicine in her works.In modern world,the authority of a doctor is far beyond that of a politician and the authority of medicine is more serious than political authority,so that almost no one has the capacity to stand against the despotism in hospital.Medicine has arrogated its own profession and it transcends the scope of physical body and makes judgment on the political attributes of body,which make the medicine become a decisive factor in biopolitics.The chapter five will inquire into Elizabeth Jolley's questioning and complaints about sexual politics and biopolitics in the logic of the heterosexual writing.In The Well and Sugar Mother,the freedom of reproduction and right to choose sexual preference become disciplined factors of power and discourse.In The Well and Sugar Mother the state and politics often act as supervisors and regulators of marriage and childbearing,which control the human body through moderately intervening marriages and procreation.The sixth chapter will analyze Jolley's transcendence and redemption in reality.As a writer,Jollley witnesses a catastrophic war and experiences the exclusion and control of political power.Deeply aware of the poor and humiliated life of people from the bottom,Jolley is trying to treat and heal human body in writing and attempt to redeem the self and others in literature.Jolley voices and expresses her tragic life and the pain from the reflection on memory,the music complex and the dancing body.It is a kind of physical and spiritual experience,which is a kind of transcendence over the monitored body in daily life.In Jolley's works,memories,dances,and music are mediators of intellectual intelligence,the means of achieving creative transcendence,and the treatment and redemption of the soul.The last part will make a conclusion that Jolley deconstructs the authority and blurs the binary position between the wrong and the true.Jolley insists on writing reality for a life and never gives up to seek redemption through writing,music and dance.Her works are cleverly conceived and carefully arranged,sometimes with sharply,sometimes euphemism implicitly,and her work is a microcosm of society,lashing social reality,highly expressive and appealing.When life suffers torture and pain,loss and death,Jolley's work will undoubtedly become the elegy of life.