Discipline And Resistance

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul,winner of the Nobel Prize for literature,is an Indian-born British writer.He has also won the Booker Prize,the Jerusalem Literature Prize and other international awards.Being one of the three British outstanding writers focusing on immigrant problems,Naipaul has published more than 20 works.The collection of short stories Miguel Street was created in 1955 and published in 1959.In Miguel Street,which contains a total of seventeen relatively independent but mutually referenced stories,V.S.Naipaul gives a meticulous portrait of the vicissitudes of life and the twists and turns of the helpless on Miguel Street,from which his compassion for the common ones is well displayed.Based on Michel Foucault’s power discourse theory,this paper makes a thorough analysis from the perspectives of the formation and features of power space and power discourse in Miguel Street,and the discipline and resistance of people in Miguel Street in the power space,and then comes to the conclusion that people in Miguel Street live a morbid life,and the continuous change of the control of power and discourse should be the dominant reason.This thesis is mainly divided into five parts.The first part is the introduction,which summarizes Naipaul’s life experience and novel Miguel Street,sorts out the research status on Miguel Street,then focuses on Foucault’s power discourse theory,and finally explains the framework and significance of the paper.The body of thesis consists of three chapters.The first chapter discusses how to form and operate the power space in Miguel Street,a relatively independent arena of space,and how the power discourse,as the product of the power struggle,promotes the power competition.As a result,spatial discourse presents the phenomenon of decentralization,forming a state of mutual confrontation.The second chapter illustrates in detail how power discourse regulates people living in Miguel Street from the dimensions of economy,politics,culture,and psychology,and takes a series of characters in the novel such as Elias,Bolo,Edward,Man-man and Bhakcu as evidence.The third chapter focuses on the efforts of a panel of people who still have a sense of resistance in Miguel Street.The resistance can be divided into two types: men’s resistance and women’s.The fighting group is predominantly male and mainly spiritual and resorted to specific actions.Most of the non-violent behaviors belong to women,because they are under double oppression both by patriarchy and colonization,and their bodies as well as minds are in a state of slavery.Therefore,the concrete action of them is slow and warm,whether Mrs.Hereira as a wife,Laura as a mother or Dolly as a daughter,their reaction has a process from scratch.Whether sound or silent,although the results end in failure,what they have in common is that they all dare to defend their power with discourse.Taking Miguel Street as a unique power space,this thesis makes an in-depth analysis of the living conditions and causes of people in Miguel Street by using Foucault’s power discourse theory,and reveals the tragic experience of the colonial people.Each of V.S.Naipaul’s characters in Miguel Street is caught in a web of power and discourse that can not be escaped.It is in this constant struggle and revolt of power and discourse that Miguel Street is able to form a seemingly peaceful situation.The life of the people on Miguel Street can be seen as a microcosm of that of all the colonized people.In this sense,V.S.Naipaul presents the living style of the marginalized and a brand new point of view to understand their plight in Miguel Street.