ABSTRACT
This thesis is focused on Foucauldian analysis of power, madness, and sexuality in Virginia Woolf¡¦s Mrs. Dalloway. Michel Foucault¡¦s assertion of power aims to explicate the positivity of exercises of power and power-knowledge nexus. Foucault¡¦s study of madness and of the history of sexuality manifests the power confrontation between reason and madness, heterosexuality and homosexuality. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf also presents these two power confrontations through the stories of the two main characters, Septimus Warren Smith and Clarissa Dalloway. Woolf, in this novel, not only explores the power relationships between human beings and the social systems but also demonstrates the two main characters¡¦ different solutions toward the power conflicts.
The Introduction begins with an overview of the theoretical frame of Foucauldian power and an explanation of the connection between Foucauldian approach and Mrs. Dalloway. In Chapter One, I discuss the cause of Septimus¡¦s madness and the power conflict between Septimus and the doctors, i.e. the power confrontation between reason and madness. In Foucauldian term, the power confrontation between reason and madness signifies the power relation between taboo and transgression. Only through incessant movements of transgression, can the limit of taboo be sensed and emancipated. Chapter Two chiefly deals with the same-sex love between Clarissa and Sally. Their choice of marriage displays the power of the norm of heterosexuality. In this chapter, I, further, present Woolf¡¦s feminist point of view toward women¡¦s subordinate position in the marriage. In Chapter Three, I mainly describe the similarities between Septimus and Clarissa and their different resolutions toward power struggles. Both of them have the homosexual inclination; however, in the moral and sexual norm of heterosexuality, they have a sense of alienation from the circumstance they live in. This sense of alienation generates their feelings of being between the two poles of life and death. They both deeply realize the power of the social norms and try to solve their impasse between life and death in the power struggles. Septimus¡¦s suicide symbolizes his resistance against the power of reason and his attempt of ending the power conflicts; on the other hand, Clarissa¡¦s choice of continuing her life conveys a message of hope of survival to counterbalance the power confrontations. In Conclusion, I reiterate the research of Mrs. Dalloway with the synthesis of Woolf¡¦s and Foucault¡¦s point of view toward power, madness, and sexuality. Both Woolf and Foucault lead readers to understand that ¡§norms¡¨ are socially and culturally constructed, and they endeavor to inspire readers to liberate those so-called norms.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0728103-144655 |
| Date | 28 July 2003 |
| Creators | Wu, Min-Hua |
| Contributors | Shing-ya Huang, Hsiao-yu Sun, Yuan-jung Chen |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0728103-144655 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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