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Resistance as the Discourse of Docile Bodies in Plath’s The Bell Jar

Journal Name:

  • Çankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Publication Year:

  • 2013

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Abstract (2. Language): 
Michel Foucault Disiplin ve Ceza adl› kitab›nda, iktidar iliflkileri içinde bedenlerin en önemli odak noktas› oldu¤unu ve iktidar›n devaml›l›k sa¤layabilmek için bireysel bedenleri disiplin teknikleri kullanarak belirli bir norma uyumlu hale getirdi¤ini anlat›yor. Foucault’ya göre gözetim ve kontrol, itaatkâr ve “faydal›” bedenler yaratmay› hedefleyen bu disipliner teknikler aras›ndad›r. Okullarda, hastanelerde, askeriyede, hapishane ve ak›l hastanelerinde ve hatta evlerde uygulanan disiplin mekanizmalar›n›n as›l amac› iktidar›n kontrolünü içsellefltirmifl bedenler, etkin makineler yaratmakt›r. Sylvia Plath’›n 1950’lerde yazd›- ¤› fakat ancak 1963’te yay›mlanan S›rça Fanus adl› kitab› Foucault’un bahsetti¤i itaatkar bedenlerin oluflum sürecinin hikayesi olarak yorumlanabilir. Roman›n bu biçimde yorumlanmas›n›n bafll›ca sebebi Plath’›n elefltirdi¤i savafl sonras› sistemin Foucault’un anlatt›¤› disipliner sistemle benzerlik göstermesidir; iki yazar›n da üstünde durdu¤u nokta bu sistemin görünmez oldu¤u, bu sebeple kolay ifllemesi ve bu mekanizman› n bir parças› olabilmek için belirli bir tür bilgiye ihtiyaç duyuluyor olmas›d›r. Plath’›n roman›- n›n as›l amac› bireyin bu disiplin mekanizmas› alt›nda nas›l bo¤uldu¤unu göstermektir. Dolay›s›yla bu makale romanda bireyin sözü edilen iktidar iliflkilerini de¤ifltirme ve bu sistemle uzlaflma çabalar›n›, bu stratejinin s›n›rl›l›¤›n› gösterecektir.
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Abstract (Original Language): 
In his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault argues that the body is the object and target in power relations, and the purpose is to discipline the body in order to ensure the continuity of society. Thus he suggests that individuals are under surveillance and regulations that are most often subtle, and that by means of those regulations modern institutions individuate bodies according to designated tasks so as to create socially docile and profitable individuals. Therefore, disciplinary methods that are employed in schools, hospitals, armies, homes as well as prisons and mental institutions, are the tools of the collective forces aiming to “obtain an efficient machine”(164), through habituating the internalization of surveillance. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, published in 1963 but written during the late 1950s, lends itself to a Foucauldian analysis of bodies that enter into the machinery of power that ‘explores [the body], breaks it down and rearranges it’ (Discipline and Punish 138). The reason for this inclination is that the postwar system that Plath critiques, like Foucault’s disciplinary institutions, also requires knowledge of the system that is invisible. Plath’s novel revolves around this theoretical framework with the aim of presenting how an individual suffocates under the pressure of disciplining regulations. This article, thus, aims to present the novel as an examination of the ways in which an individual attempts to change the power relations, negotiate with disciplining forces and the limitations of this strategy.
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REFERENCES

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