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186196

Foucault’s ‘Power Relations’ in Alan Ayckbourn’s This Is Where We Came In

Article

Last updated: 28 Dec 2024

Subjects

-

Tags

اللغات وآدابها (اللغة العربية – اللغة الإنجليزية – اللغة الفرنسية-اللغة الالمانية)

Abstract

Power is most commonly defined as the ability to do something, or to act in a particular way. Yet, when the word “power" is uttered, what immediately comes to mind is domination, authority, constraint, repression, or control over someone's behaviors or actions. For this reason, power has often been identified as a negative notion, i.e. a thing that only an individual, or a group, possess as an advantage over the rest of the community, using it as a means of accomplishing one's goals and repressing the desires of the rest. This paper introduces power as a positive notion as illustrated by the French philosopher and critic Michel Foucault (1926-1984). It presents the key features of power in the analysis of the British modern dramatist Alan Ayckbourn's play This Is Where We Came In (1990). It also examines closely the power relations among the characters of the play to prove their Foucauldian nature. Power is not a thing to be possessed, it is presented as positive relations that are spread everywhere in the society where all the individuals are free subjects acting on their own volition, whether conforming or resisting, yet without existing outside its network. In this study, the researcher addresses Foucault's perspective of power as presented in some of his works, specifically The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction (1978), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977 (1980).

DOI

10.21608/buhuth.2021.71543.1093

Keywords

power, Power relations, Storyteller, story performer

Authors

First Name

Marina

Last Name

Nashed

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Women for Arts, Science & Education, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

marina.nashed1488@gmail.com

City

-

Orcid

0000-0002-7421-4461

First Name

Reem

Last Name

El-Bardisy

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Women for Arts, Science & Education, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

reemelbardisy@gmail.com

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

1

Article Issue

4

Related Issue

26828

Issue Date

2021-04-01

Receive Date

2021-04-08

Publish Date

2021-04-01

Page Start

30

Page End

46

Print ISSN

2735-4814

Online ISSN

2735-4822

Link

https://buhuth.journals.ekb.eg/article_186196.html

Detail API

https://buhuth.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=186196

Order

3

Type

أوراق بحثیة أکادیمیة

Type Code

1,595

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

بحوث

Publication Link

https://buhuth.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Foucault’s ‘Power Relations’ in Alan Ayckbourn’s This Is Where We Came In

Details

Type

Article

Created At

23 Jan 2023