The Tempest: A Negotiable Meta-Panopticon

Hanieh Mehr Motlagh

doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.2p.212

Abstract

In The Tempest , Shakespeare represents a world in which the model of a panopticon within a panopticon reveals how the power relations functions. All the major and minor characters establish panopticons which start from their own bodies and soul and move toward the larger one which belongs to that of Prospero as the higher order who has access to a magical power and a mysterious police force. As a social group is formed in the play, the individuals in that group seek to make use of the process of testing, recording, explaining to provide obeying subjects. There are negotiations between the subversive voices and the rulers which expose the issue of containment as a personal, social, and cultural production rather than a coercive factor. Keywords: panopticon, subversion, containment, discipline, punish, negotiation

Highlights

Pertaining to Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish” and Greenblatt’s theory of “Subversion and Containment” the writer of the present article considers Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1611) a meta-panopticon play in which almost all the characters are caught up in a sort of panopticon within a panopticon and the individuals gain chances for subversion
The subversive voices are contained, there are opportunities for the lower orders to negotiate with the higher order
The present article exposes a Foucaudio-New Historicist reading with regard to the selected theories of Foucaudian “Discipline and Punish” and Greeblattian “Subversion and Containment” to provide the answers to the following questions: how does Shakespeare portrays panopticon within panopticon, how does the process of containment works through language, and what are the points of negotiation between the higher and lower orders? The answers to these questions reveal that the model of the power structures in the society of The Tempest is a meta-panopticon that is willfully constructed socially and culturally

Summary

Introduction

Pertaining to Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish” and Greenblatt’s theory of “Subversion and Containment” the writer of the present article considers Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1611) a meta-panopticon play in which almost all the characters are caught up in a sort of panopticon within a panopticon and the individuals gain chances for subversion. Likewise Lim regards the protagonist of the play as an oppressor who colonizes the alien other and he reveals how the subversive factor is silenced in order to save the power from any threats He scrutinizes the reflections of colonialism and marginalization of the Other in Europe in The Tempest (1998). The present article exposes a Foucaudio-New Historicist reading with regard to the selected theories of Foucaudian “Discipline and Punish” and Greeblattian “Subversion and Containment” to provide the answers to the following questions: how does Shakespeare portrays panopticon within panopticon, how does the process of containment works through language, and what are the points of negotiation between the higher and lower orders? The process of containment of the subversive forces is done though negotiations with the higher order in each social group based on the matter of personal privileges

Foucault’s Theory of “Discipline and Punish”

Greenblatt’s Theory of “Subversion and Containment”

The Tempest as a Panopticon within a Panopticon

Conclusion