“Disciplined Workers” In Philip Levine's Selected Poems

As the Pulitzer Prize winner in 1995 and the US poet laureate for 2011-2012,Philip Levine and his poetry always remind people of his plain style.Most of his poems are narrative,reflecting the lives of working-class in Detroit.This thesis tends to analyze the “disciplined workers” in his poems,mainly based on Michel Foucault's disciplinary theories,and aims at exploring the voiceless workers who are disciplined both in body and discourse but still share resistance so as to show Levine's humanistic sympathy for workers as well as his inspirations and encouragements to workers.The study about disciplined workers in Detroit is unfolded from three aspects: physical exploitation,political abolition and workers' resistance.The first chapter illustrates the workers in the city of motor-Detroit who obey instructions and operate the machine with certain skills and requirements.These disciplined workers' bodies are docile which can be crucially controlled,renovated and improved.They are directly involved in a political field where bodies are controlled,intervened,given marks,trained,tortured directly in the power chains.The docile bodies are forced to complete certain tasks,perform certain rituals and emit some signals.This kind of action is turning humankind into a working machine.The second chapter discusses the voiceless workers who are deprived of their discourse by upper class.They are in the net of power where they are voiceless without getting the correspondent pay and respect.As a citizen of the country,the workers can't hold the same rights as their governors for they can't speak for themselves.As a consequence,workers become the ignored class with the harder work and less dignity.The third chapter explores the resistance of Detroit workers who are disciplined in body and discourse but they still live and work tenaciously.Endless torture keep them in persistence in the face of adversity just as the strong-will grass in Whitman's works.This kind of resistance is not only a support for the working class to realize oneself but also a desire to break the social bias and get the equal identity as a citizen.Suppression is always by the side with another form.It is the same as the society,where freedom and equality is only a will,power-knowledge relation is rather its essence.Levine presents the authentic life of working-class with his simple,plain but strong words.His poetry reminds people of the essence of life.That is to say,working is the real thing he believes.He strongly heartens the pursuits of the working-class,calls for the concern of working-class and reveals the influence of this political power on social individuals.He questions the surveillance on human,criticizes the inequality in society and the lack of humanistic concern.Moreover,he emphasizes that if the working class is ignored,it will bring terrible chaos.All Levine cares is not only a call but a warn as well to modern society construction.