The Development of Control: A Foucauldian Application to the World of Fahrenheit 451
Document Type
Panel Presentation
Start Date
23-4-2021 10:45 AM
Keywords
Totalitarianism, Panopticism, Docility
Biography
Allison Frazier is a graduate student in the Department of English. She specializes in literary studies with a focus on totalitarianism and Foucauldian theory.
Major
English
Advisor for this project
John Young
Abstract
This analysis explores how the totalitarian government in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 possess the power to reign over their citizens and enforce complacency to reinforce its power. I look at Michel Foucault’s theories on discipline and punishment, docile bodies, and panopticism. Each of these theories are found in Foucault’s work Discipline and Punish, and though Foucault focuses on critiquing the prison system of the 19th century, his theories explore a larger conversation on the presentation of power in society. So, by observing and applying Foucault’s theories on complacency in the prison system, one gets a greater understanding of the impact that discipline and punishment has on sovereign bodies and those beneath the sovereignty, which in turn allows one to think about the warning signs of totalitarianism presented in Fahrenheit 451.
The Development of Control: A Foucauldian Application to the World of Fahrenheit 451
This analysis explores how the totalitarian government in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 possess the power to reign over their citizens and enforce complacency to reinforce its power. I look at Michel Foucault’s theories on discipline and punishment, docile bodies, and panopticism. Each of these theories are found in Foucault’s work Discipline and Punish, and though Foucault focuses on critiquing the prison system of the 19th century, his theories explore a larger conversation on the presentation of power in society. So, by observing and applying Foucault’s theories on complacency in the prison system, one gets a greater understanding of the impact that discipline and punishment has on sovereign bodies and those beneath the sovereignty, which in turn allows one to think about the warning signs of totalitarianism presented in Fahrenheit 451.
