The Disciplined Black Female Body

Toni Morrison,who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993,is one of the most important writers in American literature.In her first work,The Bluest Eye,Morrison tells the story of an ugly young black American girl,Pecola,who is eager to have a pair of blue eyes that symbolize whiteness.From the perspective of Foucault’s disciplinary theory,this thesis reveals how the body of black women is placed under surveillance and ultimately difficult to escape the control of the panopticon of the society.This thesis consists of three parts.The first part starts from the operation mode of disciplinary power,and discusses how the body of black women is monitored and regulated under the disciplinary mechanism from three means: hierarchical observation,normalizing judgement and examination.The second part discusses the awakening of the self-consciousness and subjectivity of black women in the face of disciplinary power and makes resistance to discipline power through self-creation and establishing friendship and bodily practice.Because the disciplinary power is everywhere,women cannot be in the dominant position under disciplinary power,and finally are objectified.Women’s body cannot escape from the panopticon of disciplinary power and finally is punished.From the perspective of Foucault’s disciplinary theory,this thesis discusses how black women’s bodies are gradually and comprehensively placed under surveillance,standardized,transformed,used and trampled,and black women’s bodies are finally hard to escape the shackles of disciplinary power and punished.The situation of black women in the novel also reflects the status of black women at that time.