The Control Of Bodies By Michel Foucault

Dystopia is common theme which dates hundreds of years in literature worldwide. Dystopian novels and short stories often depict a society repressed by a totalitarian government which comes to power after a cataclysmic occurrence, wielding unforgiving power and control over inhabitants for their own good. These dystopias are often perceived by the average citizen as a normal or unavoidable way of life, sometimes even a better way of life, yet there is often a single person or group of protagonists who question the justification of such living arrangements and threaten upheaval of the utopia sold by the ruling class.

In this world what people often forget about that a human can do is cause mass destruction, things one should remember can be forgotten easily and just as fast as it came it leave, this can be seen in the books around us. Authors share their opinion through the words they write talking about society and how if we keep going the direction we are going we will find ourselves in deep trouble, the messages authors are trying to send can be seen through social commentary, many books have powerful messages behind them; especially in dystopian novels and movies. They show these messages through diction,syntax, imagery, and character development; for examples the books and movies; Fahrenheit 451, Incarceron, Wall-E, and Hunger games. The authors Ray Bradbury, Catherine Fisher, Andrew Stanton, and Suzanne Collins all convey a message through their works through syntax, diction, camera angles, and imagery; emphasizing their warnings of what they fear may happen.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley are both novels that deal with the theme of dystopia. Both novels depict societies in which mind control is used to create social stability. There are also individuals who rebel against this loss of freedom and identity. However, these individuals lose their fight for freedom because of unsuccessful escape methods, acts of violence and effective conditioning.

Dystopia is a futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control. Dystopias, through an exaggerated worst-case scenario, make a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political system.

Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman’s work was centralised around there two different concepts of how your identity is formed through the process of power and expert knowledge. This Essay will discuss the ideas of Michel Foucault who was a French Social Theorist. His theories addressed the relationship between power and knowledge and how both of these are used as a form of social control through society. The essay will look at Foucault’s work in The Body and Sexuality, Madness and Civilisation and Discipline and Punish which displays how he conceptualised Power and identity on a Marxist and macro basis of study. The Essay will also address the Ideas of Erving Goffman who was A Canadian Born Sociologist who’s key study was what

Michel Foucault wrote a book called History of Sexuality. In Part five of the book Right of Death and Power over Life, he discusses about the historical “Sovereign Power” where one is allowed to decide who has the right to live and who has the right to die. The sovereign uses his power over life through the deaths that he can command and uses his authority to announce death by the lives he can spare. Foucault then moves on to Disciplinary Power where he came up with the “Panopticon” where one is to believe they were under surveillance at all times. Such surveillance is still used in our everyday life such as schools, prisons, offices, hospitals, and mental institutes. Later in his life, Foucault discovered Bio-power. This bio-power

One of the ideas that relates to a dystopian society is lack of freedom for citizens. In many dystopian novels citizens lack freedom. For example the novel “Brave New World” have many characteristics of a dystopian society. The irony of the world being promoted as perfect despite being the opposite is also shown in the novel. So what exactly makes Brave New World a dystopian? The society in Brave New World takes away the citizens identity and expression. The society limits the citizens ability to think on their own. In the society life basically means nothing. One of the ways that made Brave New World a dystopian society is the way the citizens were controlled. The conditions of your birth basically determined who the citizens were their entire life. The citizens were put in a caste system based on how they were born. The alphas and Epsilons. The citizens were not allowed to be or think for themselves.This makes it a dystopian society because the

In the chapter, “The body of the Condemned,” Foucault addresses the evolution of the punishment system and how it has gone from being a public spectacle to something that is done behind closed doors. Foucault opens the chapter with an extremely descriptive and gory representation of a public execution. The purpose of this was to display how execution have changed from being in the public eye to behind closed doors using the electric chair and legal injections. It was done in this fashion to deter individuals from committing heinous crimes. Today, the cost of prison time, fines, etc.. deter individuals instead. Punishment has become less about effecting the body and more about the changing the souls and integrating them back into society.

A dystopian society, usually illusory, is the reverse of an idyllic utopia: it is generally tyrannical and inhibited. Dystopian societies mirror our future- they are usually a hyperbolic familiar society with satirical exaggeration. This kind of literature is written to amend other people 's idea of the kind of society they should thrive for. As well as that, they are written to express their concerns about the future and humanity. Societies of this nature appear in many works of fiction, predominantly in novels set in a speculative future. Dystopian culture is often mused by societal collapse, dehumanization, poverty, and deprivation.

What exactly is a dystopia, and how is it relevant today? E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops uses a dystopian society to show how one lives effortlessly, lacking knowledge of other places, in order to show that the world will never be perfect, even if it may seem so. A society whose citizens are kept ignorant and lazy, unknowing that they are being controlled, unfit to act if they did, all hidden under the guise of a perfect utopian haven, just as the one seen in The Machine Stops, could be becoming a very real possibility. There is a rational concern about this happening in today’s world that is shared by many, and with good reason. Dystopian worlds are often seen as fictitious, though this may not be the case in the

A dystopia the darkest form of government, a utopia gone wrong, a craving for power, struggling for fewer rules. The dystopia is factual the worst possible form of a government. Its the struggle to be so perfect that it fails. There are typically two types of dystopias first a monarchy. A monarchy is a group of people controlled by a king or queen, and they make every last decision. What they want they get. A monarchy is typically born like this example from lord of the flies. “He became absorbed beyond mere happiness as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them, urging them, ordering them"(Golding 58). This shows that a monarchy starts by one just taking over from the start rather than being a

Michel Foucault’s work within philosophy has made important impacts when it comes to understanding how power affects a capitalist state. Believed that history of a country should how the past created a better future for society but in most cases through history, that was not the case. One of the examples that Foucault uses is how the mentally ill were treated in the Renaissance compared to the 18th century. During the Renaissance period, the mental ill people were allowed to seen within society and were seen as useful and gave wisdom into their society rather than in the 18th century. People with mental illness were put away and see as a burden to society and seen as needed to being cured by sinister people. Another example that Foucault discuss

Years ago, Charles Darwin developed a theory of evolution. The strong will readjust and change while the weak die off. This became known as natural selection. The world is ever changing and in order to survive, one must adapt to their surroundings. Without doing so, the chances of survival are slim. Much like society today. Society has the top 1%, who are adjusting just fine to this ever changing world. But what about the other 99% of people? Majority of them are the ones struggling to change their life. Whether it be by going to school to earn a degree and a higher paying job, or cutting back on expenses to afford the necessities of life, one must adapt. Dystopian literature gives people an idea of what could happen in this ever growing, refined world. Most dystopian literatures install a sense of fear in people. A fear that society could be taken over by a select few, an unnatural force, or Mother Nature herself. The movie, In Time¸ and the story by Ray Bradbury, The Murderer, give chilling examples of what could, or could not, become of just Earth, but society as well.

A dystopian society is an illusion of a perfect society. Think of a world where having fun isn’t allowed. Nothing that has been created is fun no sports, no computer games, no music and everything in life has a purpose. You are forced to work for the rest of your life a job that the government chose. The government chooses who you are going to marry, where you are going to live and how much you are going to make. However, one person is assigned a job that he enjoyed and is fun. It is so fun that he become the best in the field. He then goes on to become the boss of everybody in that field and starts to boss around the people at the firm. If somebody says something that he does not agree with they get fired. The keys aspect of a dystopian society can either be a control of information, a singularity in power or ruling in fear and the purpose of these stories to the reader is what would happen if we let it run its course?

In every dystopia, the government is the face of tyranny; it rules with an iron fist, monitors the peoples and implants fear and terror in the lives. Moreover, the government has absolute control over all the society’s systems like the educational systems. Through education, the government forms the ideologies of the following generation making sure that they remain submissive like the previous ones. Basically, the government brainwashes the minds of the citizens depriving them of the freedom of choice and creating slaves that will always be loyal to the ruling system. Accordingly, Gregory Claeys explains”dystopia embodies unfreedom, and exposure to the constantly capricious rule of a supremely powerful force, which may be human, natural, superhuman or utterly artificial’’ (Claeys). Hence, the methods that the government takes, by forming peoples’ minds from childhood, make sure that the people will never question the authority or violate the social