| George Orwell(1903-1950)is renowned over the world as a political fictionist,journalist and social critics.In his short lifetime,he creates a series of literary works,such as Homage to Catalonia,Coming Up For Air,Animal Farm,etc.The most classical one is the Nineteen Eighty-Four which is the best-known anti-totalitarian novel in the literary world and rated with Brave New World by Aldous Huxley,We by Yevgeny Zamyatin as the dystopian trilogy.In this novel,Orwell delineates precisely a nightmarish society where the totalitarian regime does not control the members through combinations of weapons and atrocities but with deliberate disciplinary techniques.Foucault’s systematic theories of disciplinary power provide detailed analyses of how a regime exerts its own power on populace through establishments of a dominating mechanism.It is rational that Foucauldian approaches to Orwell can help reveal and clarify the disciplinary mechanism in this society.This paper chooses Foucault’s theories of disciplinary power as theoretical supports trying to provide a systematical Foucauldian reading of Orwell’s imaginary world.This paper is made up of five basic parts.The first part offers a simple introduction to George Orwell,Nineteen Eighty-Four and its related studies at home and abroad,Foucault’s theories of disciplinary power.The first chapter argues the disciplinary mechanism practiced by the totalitarian regime from three divisions:corporal control,ideological domination and guarantees for smooth implementations of disciplinary implementations.Chapter Two lays emphases on analyzing the effects induced by the disciplinary mechanism on the people’s lives.The disciplinary techniques practiced by the regime not only deprive individual freedom of actions but also destroy their human characteristics,which make the public of Oceania full slaves of totalitarian domination.The third chapter sheds lights on how the rebel members in the text — Winston and Julia,challenge the regime and limitations of themselves which result in their failures.The last part is a conclusion which summarizes the thesis and points out Orwell’s view of the totalitarian society as a sick and alienated form of society and his warning of the public against the harm of it. |
