Discipline, Concession And Resistance

Child 44,written by Tom Rob Smith,is set in the 1950 s,the Soviet Union era.Leo Demidov,the main character,was one of the core officers in the State Security Force.He was sent to investigate the death of a child,or more precisely,to correct the child's parents' “inappropriate” claim that their son was murdered by someone.In the novel,one of the fundamental pillars of the new society is “There is no crime”.Crimes were believed to be one of the evil features of the capitalist society.The new socialist society they had just created was a superior social system,a paradise.Leo used to have devout faith in his government and served the State Security Force with his full heart.But as Leo went deeper into the murder case,he found out the government he served would commit any evil conducts just to ensure its own hegemony.People were the puppets of those in power.Having witnessed how innocent people got executed for made-up charges,Leo started to question the“truths” he and his compatriots had been taught for so long.In the end,Leo started to fight against the disciplinary power.The author,Tom Rob Smith,who was born in 1979,is quite a young and talented British novelist.He is also a brilliant script editor.As a homosexual,he has long suffered from the subtle estrangement and alienation.And he is determined to write something to “make a difference” about the biased statements under disciplinary society.Disciplinary society does not merely mean the terrifying totalitarian society depicted in many classic anti-Utopia novels.It is everywhere in our modern daily life.New forms of threats disguised by modern technologies such as social media are casting more and more influence on the society.Repressive state apparatuses like government,political institutions,armies,police,prisons which operate through violence and coercive power are less common now.Ideological state apparatus like religion,school education,parental education,culture and social media which operate through using ideology begin to penetrate every part of our lives.Typical examplesare schools and factories.The proper combination of rewards and punishment helps to deliberately create an environment aiming to discipline the people.This created environment will gradually form certain “knowledge” and pass on as “truth”.This paper proceeds with an introduction,three chapters and a conclusion.Introduction briefly introduces the novel and the author,Tom Rob Smith.Also,a literature review and structural review are given in this part.Chapter one explains the manifestation of disciplinary power in Child 44.The success of disciplinary power,according to Foucault,mainly depends on three techniques: hierarchical observation,normalizing judgment,and examination.The disciplinary society in Child 44 uses both training techniques and juridical-discursive power to discipline its people.Chapter two focuses on the identity construction and distortion as well as people's concession under disciplinary power.Especially on the identity distortion of three representative categories: how women are degraded as objects;how the resisters are interpreted as the enemy and how the homosexuals are depicted as deviants.Chapter three discusses the resistance in Child 44.This part further explores the positive role of people in fighting against the disciplinary power and provides people with several feasible methods.The conclusion part summarizes the whole paper,exploring the current significance of this novel and pointing out the theme of novel.Although the network of disciplinary power is ubiquitous,it is still possible to fight for a way out.