Exploring Mechanisms of Disciplinary Power: A Foucauldian Reading of Ben Okri’s The Freedom Artist

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the omniscient presence of State power in citizens’ life which controls their freedom by creating a disciplinary society and recreating the truth. Building upon Ben Okri’s The Freedom Artist, this research article interrogates different disciplinary tools adopted by State power in order to form a disciplinary society. This study analyzes the idea of Repressive State Power by using Foucault’s concept of power, surveillance and controlling gaze which manipulates ideological and physical aspects of an individual’s life. Repressive State Power monitors thoughts and actions of its subjects and constructs a disciplinary society quite similar to Bentham’s Panopticon. The Freedom Artist envisions the idea of an oppressive State beset with civil war, misuse of power, corruption and disillusionment in the post-independent Nigeria. However, Okri’s representation of an oppressive State transgresses the spatio-temporal boundaries casting a worldwide projection of State power. Exploring the intersection of the fictional narrative of The Freedom Artist and Foucauldian notion of power, this paper aims to examine the ways in which State power regulates our lives by forming an apparatus of control at the heart of which is surveillance and disciplinary mechanisms. Furthermore, this research intends to explore the conversion of individuals into docile and obedient subjects in order to execute coercion on their bodies.