Disciplinary Powers And Loss Of Subjectivity: A Foucaltian Reading Of Ian Mcewan's Saturday

Ian McEwan is one of the outstanding contemporary British novelists. Since the 1980s,he has published many novels and short stories, some of which have been engraved in literary history.Saturday is the second influential work that McEwan published in the 21st century. It has been highly appraised by readers and critics. Since its appearance, academic researches of the novel have mushroomed at home and abroad. Some scholars have applied narratological theories to the study of its form, and others have studied its themes in the aspects of politics, culture, trauma, power, ethics and so on. Though a few of them have mentioned how macro power works on the protagonist and how he loses himself in such an environment, they have not noticed his sufferings brought about by the omnipresent micro power network. And this is exactly the subject of the present study.This thesis,based on Foucault's theory of power, is to explore how the characters in Saturday are disciplined by the micro power network in their daily life, and how they suffer in the loss of subjectivity.The thesis is composed of four chapters.Chapter One is the introduction, which briefly introduces Ian McEwan and his Saturday. It gives a general survey of previous studies on McEwan and this novel, and explains the focus and structure of the thesis.Chapter Two mainly discusses how pervasive micro power acts upon the two main characters through discourse and spectacles in the city. Henry Perowne makes full use of his medical knowledge and discourse to control Baxter, turning him into a trapped patient.On the other hand, however, Perowne is controlled by the knowledge and discourse from mass media. Apart from discursive power, spectacles in the city, such as office buildings and shops, constantly transmit the spirit of capitalism and the consuming culture, which make Perowne obedient both in body and in mind.Chapter Three reveals loss of subjectivity as a consequence of the disciplinary powers' functioning on the characters. Baxter loses his right of discourse owing to the discipline of Perowne's indifferent lies. Perowne's cognitive ability to uncover truth from illusory images is gradually lost; meanwhile, he becomes a cold and stone-hearted person because he is losing humanistic concern under the strong force of the spirit of capitalism and consuming culture.Chapter Four summarizes the previous discussions in the thesis. After restating the disciplinary powers and their disastrous effect reflected in Saturday, it points out that modern people need to be more tolerant and caring towards their fellow beings in order to break the shackles of the pervasive disciplinary powers.