Reading Jude’s Unbending Character in the Mirror of Foucauldian Power and Normalization

Abstract

This paper analyses Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure in the light of Foucault’s notion of power relations and normalization. Foucault holds that there is a dynamically productive power in every society that imposes its own ideology on people. Through different strategies and procedures, mainly normalization, he insists, power tries to produce docile subjects that can be best controlled. However, since the existence of power presupposes the existence of resistance, he believes, subjects can have their own alternatives if they try their hand at acquiring an ethical self by practicing the strategies of ‘care of the self.’ Relying on such perspective, the present article tries to study Jude, the semi-protagonist of Thomas Hardy’s novel, and examine the way he is capable of resisting normalization and the extent he is successful in achieving a new self. The findings show that Hardy’s rendering of society is not completely in line with Foucault’s notion of power relations because Jude is incapable of effectively resisting power relations working in his society.

Keywords: Foucault, power, normalization, Hardy, Jude