Published Online:June 2024
Product Name:The IUP Journal of English Studies
Product Type:Article
Product Code:
Author Name:S Paramagururaj and M Subha
Availability:YES
Subject/Domain:Arts and Humanities
Download Format:PDF
Pages:8
The paper analyzes the novel The Circle by Dave Eggers from ‘reverse spectacle’ perspective, which is an inherent mechanism of panopticism. Foucault elaborates on Bentham’s panopticism and associates its function with reverse spectacle. Reverse spectacle is a mechanism by which a few people have complete surveillance over a majority, whereas in spectacle, a majority of people have surveillance over a few people. This mechanism is at work in the dystopian novel The Circle. The Circle, a reputed company, conducts surveillance of almost all people around the world with its digital dominance. The company gains supremacy due to its virtual dominance, and uses it to reverse the power structure in the real world. All this is made possible via constant surveillance by the small company over a larger community, i.e., the world. The modus operandi of the company is shown in the paper as an instance of reverse spectacle.
French philosopher Foucault, identified as the new Kant in the twentieth century, has had a striking influence on academicians and scholars around the world through his vibrant thoughts. His writing is packed with the concept of power. It gets a different dimension as he breathes new vigor into the concept of power. The stereotypical view regarding power held by previous philosophers such as Nietzsche and Marx is brought under a critical lens. It prepared Foucault to question the authenticity that bifurcates society into two groups: powerful and powerless. To Marx, the powerful and powerless groups are identified as the bourgeoisie/capitalists and proletariat, whereas to Nietzsche, these two groups are identified as masters (noble) and slaves, respectively. “Whereas all noble morality grows out of a triumphant saying ‘yes’ to itself, slave morality says ‘no’ on principle to everything that is ‘outside,’ ‘other,’ ‘non-self’” (Nietzsche 1994, 20).