Foucault's Discipline And Punish

Change over time; that is a common theme with everything in the world. The concept of punishment is no different in that regard. In the 16th and 17th century the common view for punishing people was retaliation from the king and to be done in the town square. In what seemed to be all of a sudden, there was a change in human thinking, the concept of punishment changed to a more psychological approach compared to a public embarrassment/torture approach. The following paragraphs will discuss the development of prisons and what in fact gives people gives people the right to punish; as well as the overall meaning and function of prisons. The work by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison will help with the arguments

Prisons hide prisoners from society. “If an inmate population is shut in, the free community is shut out, and the vision of men held in custody is, in part, prevented from arising to prick the conscience of those who abide by the social rules” (Sykes, 1958, 8). The prison is an instrument of the state. However, the prison reacts and acts based on other groups in the free community. Some believe imprisonment

This part of the paper will provide a comparison with a theorist previously discussed in a lecture. The theorist with whom Michael Foucault’s arguments will be compared to is Emile Durkheim. Durkheim sees crime as functional. He says that if there was no crime, all our values would be dispersed--these values are laws. These laws are observed by sanctions and punishments attached to it. However, in order for these laws to exist, there must be a punishment, thus, for there to be a punishment, there has to be crime. Repressive law, according to this classical theorist was based on punishing for the evil doing of the criminal through revenge. Durkheim believes that a crime is not collective and when one goes against the core values of society, one threatens the entire order of society. Therefore, this theorist would agree with Foucault that when disciplining a criminal, he or she should be stripped of their freedom and when

Foucault’s primary example of a disciplinary institution was the Panopticon planned by J. Bentham. It was what seemed to be precise in the aspects of control, power, discipline, and isolation. It was for all types of people such as a schoolboy, worker, sickly patient or a madman. It was created to stop all foolishness. Inmates needed to be watched constantly to make sure that everything and everyone were in order; therefore there was special architecture produced in order to accomplish that task.

According to Foucault, power does not belong to the individual, but to the system, to the institution. In his essay on Discipline and Punish, Foucault presents his idea of the panopticon mechanism, a mechanism in which visibility is a trap. With little importance over the actual individual in the role of the observer or of the observed, the object of the system is total power over the observed. Due to the unique shape of the panopticon, there are no corners and thus no blind spots for the observed to hide in. The private space is replaced by the public one. Furthermore, as final evidence of total control, the observed never knows for sure if they are being watched or not, as they can’t see the observer (Foucault 200-205). Foucault further argues that this system is followed by any government institution, placing the society under permanent observation. Individuals might try to evade the system, but achieving liberation and freedom is not something that anyone could do. Dostoevsky’s famous novel, Crime and

Kambili contrasts her disposition as she usually stutters before responding, if she responds at all. As a result of the encounters she has with Amaka who blatantly says what she wishes to, one observes changes in Kambili. Initially, Kambili’s reticence inhibits her from asking questions. As the novel progresses, one learns that Kambili becomes able to pose questions, such as one she asks Amaka, and she knows that she would not have done so before as she would have only ‘’wondered about it’’ and not asked the question. The way in which Adichie highlights the contrasts between Amaka and Kambili makes it possible for one to identify the influence that Amaka has on Kambili. By mentioning the differences in the dispositions of these two characters, Kambili’s ability to hold and express her opinions and pose questions is identifiable. Thus, Amaka, as a result of the influence she has on her, makes her realise that she can express her opinions and ask the questions she wishes to

Through the discussion of punishment and its purpose Foucault brings up the idea of normalization. Government and other higher levels of authority have established what they consider to be proper conduct within society. Those who deter from those guidelines are punished.

Throughout Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie, Kimbili and her brother become more defiant. The two learn that standing up for what one believes in is of the utmost importance, even if it means defying those you love. This lesson is most relevant when the reader analyses the narrator's relationship with their tyrannical father, Eugene. Adichie portrays two different views on defiance through Kimbili's father and her brother, Jaja. This stark contrast facilitates the reader's understanding on Adichie's own conflicted stance on the topic of defiance by the death of Eugene and his brutal rule and his family's reinvention of themselves after Kimbili's trip to see her Aunt and cousins.

Kambili goes to her aunt's house and sees people with freedom, one of whom is Amaka, her cousin. She sees how Amaka is able to speak

The author of the essay “Panopticism”, Michel Foucault gives his opinion on power and discipline in Panopticism. He describes Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon”, a tower in the centre of a room which has vision to every cell, generalized for prisoners. In simple words, it functioned in maintaining discipline throughout the jail. It’s most distinctive feature was that; prisoners could be seen without ever seeing. Prisoners would never really know when they are watched and when not. They are always under the impression that someone is keeping an eye on them continuously and if anything goes wrong, or they make mistake, they would be punished severely. Since, a prisoner would never know when he/she is watched, they have to be at their best. In a

A freedom to be, to do” (16). Jaja heavily impacts Kambili by exposing their father’s misconduct and revealing that rebelling against him is not a sin, showing Kambili how she too could be liberated from the world of pain and abuse caused by their father. Additionally, the hibiscuses are relevant to Jaja because after Aunty Ifeoma introduces him to the flower, Jaja begins to

Stability in terms of society can be defined as the state in which power is clear and defined, and the constituents abide to those in power. In modern day institutions, a certain amount of stability must exist or people would lack the motivation to get work done and would not respond to authority. To ensure motivation, employers will install cameras, or use other techniques to always keep an eye on their workers. If people are doing nothing wrong, there is no reason to have a problem with being watched. For this reason, it is not surprising that employers set their work station similar to a Panopticon, an institutional building that is step up with someone in the middle watching everyone, but the workers don’t know if they are being

Foucault looks at public torture as the outcome "of a certain mechanism of power" that views crime in a military schema. Crime and rebellion are akin to a declaration of war. The sovereign was not concerned with demonstrating the ground for the enforcement of its laws, but of identifying enemies and attacking them, the power of which was renewed by the ritual of investigation and the ceremony of public torture.[5]

In her article, “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”, Bartkey begins by summarizing philosopher Michel Foucault’s literary analysis of the Panopticon and how the prison system works tying it to modern society. Foucault begins by using the example of a student who is forced to sit in assigned seating based of class ranking. The scrutiny the student faces forces him to sit upright; he must keep feet his feet on the floor; his head must stay erect; and he may not slouch or fidget. With

For Foucault you cannot understand imprisonment without looking at torture first and how they both correlate to one another. Throughout this essay I will assess Foucault’s theories about torture and his views of how it has come about. I will look at how torture is a technique and the forms of disciplinary techniques that accompany torture. I will assess the power structures and how it manifests into other institutions in today’s society. Lastly how torture is needed to understand imprisonment. Torture was used as a scare tactic in the past to keep individuals under control. Society was aware of what may occur to them if they disobeyed the law. This initiated power and discipline over citizens which helps us to understand power relations today in terms of imprisonment.