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The Bluest Eye: Discourse, Power and the Bildungsroman
The Bildungsroman, or
“novel of apprenticeship”, is a literary genre associated most commonly
with the late eighteenth century that in general terms, typically concerns
the life journey of a young man, from childhood to manhood. Firmly
anchored in a masculine sensibility, this genre is most closely associated
with Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, and this work often serves as the
foundation for critical evaluation of the genre. The development of the
Bildungsroman protagonist follows a traceable and predictable path,
usually occurring in three basic stages; the first stage deals with the
protagonist as a child ‘in the family,’ influenced by familial values and
norms. With the onset of adolescence, the protagonist must set out on a
journey of self-discovery, involving a series of trials and challenges.
This intermediate stage, which we may call the ‘wandering’ stage, is seen
as a time to gain experience, and to discover the world outside of the
home, on one’s own experimental terms. In the third and final stage, the
protagonist “finds his place in the world”, usually discussed in
occupational terms. In this stage, the protagonist has experienced the
world outside, and through a process of reflection and self-examination,
is inspired to return home, in order to enter into the established order;
or, in the words of Dahl, the protagonist is able to find his place in
society by, “morally submitting himself to the community represented by
the state.”(Dahl, 422) This ultimate entry into the established order
implies an evaluation by the protagonist of the social structure he is
entering, and the genre itself strongly asserts the ultimate value of this
social structure.
The Bildungsroman model
can be seen, in Foucaldian terms, as an exercise of ultimate control by
the culturally dominant systems of power and observation that act on the
individual. In the traditional trajectory of the Bildungsroman, the
protagonist engages in a period of discovery and experimentation, but
ultimately finds his place in the community, ostensibly on ‘his own
terms’. We can see the Bildunsroman, then, as an essentially
conventionalist genre. Success is defined by the protagonist’s ultimate
entrance into the social order, and in the world of the Bildunsroman, this
entrance is considered the only viable path to ‘success’. There is an
implication of free choice here; the protagonist is expected to eventually
‘come around’, and enter the dominant social structure, but the preceding
period of discovery implies that the protagonist will be able to enter
this dominant structure ‘on his own terms’. As Dahl states, in the final
stage of development, the protagonist achieves the “more or less
harmonious recognition that it is possible to achieve things within the
established order.” The protagonist then, has an illusion of choice, or at
least some sense of self-determination, but the only truly viable
option is entrance into the dominant structure; so while it may feel like
self-determination, there is ultimately no other option.
To state this in terms of Foucault’s ideas of discourse and disciplinary
power, by the final stage of the novel, the protagonist is so influenced
by the prevailing systems of disciplinary power and control, that he
ultimately internalizes these controls. Foucault asserts that under the
panoptic influence, disciplinary power acts on and through the
individual, “he becomes the principle of his own subjection.” (p. 203
Discipline and Punish) What feels like self-determination, the entrance
into a dominant social structure ‘on one’s own terms,’ is in fact a
capitulation to the dominant power-knowledge systems that had acted on the
protagonist from the start. It is the internalization of social controls
that gives
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