本文是一篇英语文学论文，本文以此为理论基础，探讨着《女孩和妇女们的生活》中在规范暴力下被承认，被移除，被遮蔽的各类女性身体的现状和成因。
Chapter OneObedience to Norm:The Acknowledged Woman’sBody
A.Disciplined Women’s Bodies by Social Conventions
Human bodies,in Foucault’s eyes,to some extent,have been conceptualized as thesubject.But his view of the subject is not like the philosophy of the subject that emerged in the West in the 18th century,which considers the human subject as the basisof knowledge and the principle of practice,in this way,the human subject is made as theobject of knowledge and rights.This kind of modern Enlightenment idea is whatFoucault tends to criticize.He points out that humans could not just be essentialized orabstracted as the subject,but must be examined in historical and political dimensions,asthey are constructed as the subject by the mechanism of knowledge-power.
Foucault emphasizes that power is not simply a dichotomy between the oppressorand the subjugated by employing the genealogy method.But a mechanism that achievesitself by the rationality of knowledge in order to demonstrate specific objectives andprocedures.Thus Foucault’s new view,which regards the country as a genealogicalcollection of various governance that reveals the subject’s power construction,inspiresothers with a new perspective.In other words,humans are the subjects that aremonitored and governed by the bio-power.The term“bio-pouvior”is a concept coinedby Foucault to refer to the power mechanism that views human life as the goal of power.
B.Desirable Women’s Bodies in the Sexual Relationship
Throughout human history,the relationship between the sexes and the human needto reproduce have been inextricably linked.Reproduction is one of the most basichuman needs.The bodies of both sexes should therefore be in the same position in thisprocess.However,as human society developed,the male body gradually gained dominance over this process and began to discipline the woman’s body in this way.AsPilcher and Whelehan declare in Fifty Key Concepts in Gender Studies that“Literally,patriarchy means rule by the male head of a social unit,for example,a family or atribe”(Pilcher and Whelehan 93).The male projects his desires onto the woman’s body,which is made to change and adapt for the sake of male desire.Thus the woman’s body,which is vulnerable in gender relations,naturally becomes a desirable woman’s bodyunder the power of male constructs of discipline.
According to the stories in this book,Munro spends a lot of ink on therelationships between men and women.And she does not shy away from presenting thecarnal relationship between the bodies of men and women.In fact,through the narrativeof physical contact between men and women,the situation in which the male andwomen’s bodies find themselves in the relationship between the two can also be shown.
Chapter TwoViolence of Derealization:The Removed Woman’sBody
A.The Hysterical Bodies of Madwomen
Hysteria was initially thought to be a mental illness.Madness was viewed in theMiddle Ages as the Devil’s vengeance.By the mid-to-late 19th century,it had become amajor subject of psychiatric research and was considered a woman-specific mentalillness.And all the classic studies of hysteria send a signal that it’s a woman’spersonality.Later,the discussion of hysterical women’s bodies are more and morecommon.
People would,however,respond negatively to abnormal bodies because they usenorms to determine what constitutes a normal human body.The reasons behind people’suncomfortable,even awful attitudes toward hysterical bodies are complicated,but oneof them is that the body of a hysterical one is not concealed.When the body appears inpublic in a state of hysteria,the world that people have built up by norms would beshaken.To reject this hysterical body is to defend what people believe to be the norm.This is especially true when the body is a woman.So the woman’s body has to face theabove-mentioned shackles of norms.
Of course,with the advanced development of science,this view is proved to be
