Exploring Discipline and Resistance in To Kill a Mockingbird from Perspective of Foucault’s Theory of Power

Abstract

Modern society is a kind of disciplined society where individuals are intertwined in a network of power, being the object controlled by power and the role of wielding power. Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird demonstrates that various disciplines control everyone. Townspeople with different gender, race and class identity have unconsciously accepted discipline or evidently suffered oppression from the discourse of patriarchy, racial discrimination, and rationality. Under different disciplines of power, some people are submissive without observing subtle forms of power, while others are dissatisfied with the status quo and rising against oppression. Combined with Foucault's theory of power, this paper explores the oppression that resulted from unequal power relations and resistance against the power of discourse. The study finds that women and children are the victims of patriarchal ideology; black folks lose their voice, dignity and civil rights under the constraints of racial hierarchy; and those who violate social norms would be regarded as freaks and expelled from the mainstream by rationality discourse. Eventually, the paper reveals diversified modes of power operation in Maycomb and Harper Lee's humanistic reflections on equality and justice.