On The Foucaultian Disciplinary Power In Devil In A Blue Dress

Walter Mosley(1952-)is a representative black detective novelist and politician in contemporary African American literature.Devil in a Blue Dress,his first novel,has won the praises from critics,readers,and even the former US President Bill Clinton since its publication.By using the first-person narrative perspective,it has depicted the hardships of African Americans leaving Houston for Los Angeles from 1948 to 1963 to realize their American dream,highlighting the oppressive living conditions of African Americans in the post-WWII American society.Based on Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power,this paper aims to examine the whites’ operation of disciplinary power in mainstream American society in Devil in a Blue Dress,explore the predicaments of African American Easy Rawlins under disciplinary power and his way out of predicaments for freedom and equality.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One introduces Walter Mosley and Devil in a Blue Dress,summaries the researches both at home and abroad,illustrates Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power and states the thesis statement.Chapter Two analyzes the operation of disciplinary power from three aspects of hierarchical observation,normalizing judgment and examination through exposing the living conditions of Easy Rawlins under disciplinary power.Chapter Three explores the effects of disciplinary power on Easy Rawlins in white-controlled disciplinary society,revealing the survival dilemma of being deprived of the freedom on both the body and the discourse.Chapter Four studies how Easy Rawlins resists against oppression for physical emancipation and free discourse,which presents African Americans’ arduousness in resisting against disciplines in pursuit of freedom and equality.Chapter Five concludes the significance of this thesis.By criticizing the American power society under capitalist ideology,Mosley expresses his concerns about the living conditions of African Americans and other ethnic minority groups,which manifests his ambitious expectation on building an equal and harmonious society.