Theatre of Power: Conflicts, Resistance and Foucauldian Power

國立中山大學外國語文研究所碩士論文 A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRAGUATE INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE NATIONAL SUN YAT -SEN UNIVERSITY 指導教授: 王儀君 Advisor: Professor Wang I-Chun 題目：權力劇場：大衛‧馬梅特之《房地產大亨》及《美國水牛》中的衝突、反抗與傅柯式權力觀 Title: Theatre of Power: Conflicts, Resistance and Foucauldian Power in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo 研究生: 陳宛伶撰 By: Chen Wan-Ling 中華民國八十九年六月 June 2000 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I’ve learned that the most precious gift I’ve received is the warm concern and constant encouragement from the following people on my way of bringing this thesis to fulfillment. First and foremost, my gratitude goes to Professor Wang I-chun, my advisor. Without her patient guidance and perceptive advice, I could never be out of the impasse in the process of my thesis-writing. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my oral examiners, Professor Wu Hsin-fa and Professor Liao Pen-shui, whose inspiring questions and invaluable suggestions help better this thesis. I am grateful to my sworn confidants for their lasting friendship and immense support: to Emily Wu, for her steady care and understanding; to Sharon Tseng and Joan Lin, for their collecting important resources; to Gavin Wong and Vincent Tsai, for their careful proofreading at the final stage of the draft; to Leo Chen, Jackie Chen and Irene Wang, for their continual assistance. I wish to thank my musketeers, as well as forever friends, Pao-i Hwang and Grace Lai, for their cherished companionship. I also owe my good friends Ashlee Tai, Gloria Tsai and Jay Lee a great deal. My special thank goes to Eric Chen and Pei-ju Wu for their reading part of my draft and offering advisable opinions. I am deeply and permanently indebted to my parents and siblings. With their indefatigable love and inexhaustible confidence in me, I am always courageous to accept every challenge in my life. 論文名稱：權力劇場: 大衛‧馬梅特之《房地產大亨》及《美國水牛》中的衝突、反抗與傅柯式權力觀頁數：一百二十八頁校所組別：國立中山大學外國語文研究所畢業名稱及提別要：八十八學年度第二學期碩士學位論文提要研究生：陳宛伶指導教授：王儀君教授論文提要本論文旨在以傅柯式權力觀詮讀分析大衛‧馬梅特著名之「商業三部曲」中的《房地產大亨》及《美國水牛》。多數的評論家在檢視這兩部劇作中的權力關係時，著重在權力的負面觀念上，例如：剝削與壓制。本文主要探討在《房地產大亨》及《美國水牛》中的人際關係裡之權力正向性，並進而闡明馬梅特的商人角色其自我維護之失敗，乃因運用錯誤的權力策略所導致。傅柯式權力通徹地彰顯出馬梅特式商業世界中權力運作的精密性與權力功效的正面性。緒論一章提及馬梅特之商業戲劇的獨特風格，並指出所選的二部戲劇與傅柯式權力分析觀的關連性。首章概述本文之理論架構，介紹傅柯式權力觀。此章中，除了探論傅柯之權力觀念的變遷和梗概，且提出法律的迂迴論証之權力模型(juridical-discursive model of power)的特質。由此，在接續的次兩章權力分析過程中，揭櫫筆者採傅柯式權力觀為本論文詮解之原因。第二章企圖由《房地產大亨》中一連串的背叛行為來檢視其中的權力關係。為求生存，馬梅特的商人角色以反抗之名為其在權力關係中的反叛行為掩護。第三張主要探討《美國水牛》中角色間的矛盾衝突及精細的權力運作。劇中三位主要角色因無法將友誼與商機間的考量清楚區別，造成物質利益涉入之人際關係的扭曲。經由這二齣權力劇的權力關係探討，結論一章肯定大衛‧馬梅特戲劇創作目的已臻至善，倘使其讀者能警覺錯誤的權力策略造就扭曲的人際關係之危機。 ABSTRACT This thesis is focused on the Foucauldian analysis of power in two of David Mamet’s famous “Business Trilogy” – Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo. Most of Mamet’s critics concentrate on the negative notion of power, i.e., exploitation and repression, while examining relations of power in the business worlds of these two plays. The primary concern of this study is to explore the positivity of exercises of power in human relationships in Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo and then illuminate the fact that Mamet’s figures of businessmen’s false employment of strategy of power thereupon leads them to fail their self-assertions. Foucauldian analytics of power thoroughly manifests the subtlety of operation of power as well as the productive effects of power in Mametian business world. The introduction mentions the distinctiveness of Mamet’s business plays and explains the connection between these two plays of Mamet and Foucauldian analytics of power. Chapter one deals with an overview of Foucault’s conception of power, which provides a theoretical frame for the body of this study. In this chapter, not only the transformation and the skeleton of Foucauldian power are proffered, but the characteristics of juridical-discursive model of power are also introduced. Therefore, in the following two chapters, the reasons of employing Foucauldian analytics of power for this research are displayed in the process of analyzing exercises of power. The second chapter attempts to exam the power relations from a series of actions of betraying in Glengarry Glen Ross. It is shown that Mamet’s businessmen, for the sake of survival, practice betrayals in the light of exercising resistance in relations of power. Chapter three is chiefly concerned with the conflicts and delicate exercises of power among the characters in American Buffalo. The three main characters’ failure of distinguishing business from friendship causes the distortion of human relations in which material advantages are involved. Throughout the examination of power relations in these two plays of power, the last chapter concludes that David Mamet’s aim of writing plays will be achieved if his readers become to be aware of the danger of wrongly adopting strategies of power in human communities. Notes on the text (Abbreviation for the text) References to the following works are cited parenthetically in the text: AM Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation, ed. Brian Wallis (New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984). DF Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power and the Body (New York: Routledge, 1991). DM David Mamet: A Casebook, ed. Leslie Kane (New York: Garland, 1992). DMs David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross: Text and Performance, ed. Leslie Kane (New York: Garland, 2000). DP Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). HS The History of Sexuality Volume I: An Introduction (New York: Vintage Books, 1990). LF The Later Foucault: Politics and Philosophy, ed. Jeremy Moss (London: Sage Publications, 1998). PK Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980). WW Weasels and Wisemen: Ethics and Ethnicity in the Work of David Mamet (New York: St. Martin’s P, 1999). Table of Contents Introduction -----------------------------------------------------------------------------1 Chapter One An Overview of Foucauldian Power ------------------------------------------20 Chapter Two: Glengarry Glen Ross: Betrayals as Resistance ----------------------------------------------50 Chapter Three American Buffalo: Where There Is Conflict, There Is Power --------------------------84 Conclusion ----------------------------------------------------------------------------113 Works Cited --------------------------------------------------------------------------123 Chen 1 Introduction Though David Mamet started to write plays late until after 1970, his position in American literary or cinema history is publicly recognized as important and influential. C. W. E. Bigsby highly praises Mamet as a “natural successor to such writers as Arthur Miller, Clifford Odets and Eugene O’Neill” (Bigsby 63), and Philip Kolin also writes: “If Miller, Williams, and Albee form a first generation triumvirate in the American theatre, then Rabe securely stands with Mamet and Shepard as the triumvirate of the second generation of American playwrights since 1945” (Anglo-American Interplay in Recent Drama 117). Mamet has worked in the theatre as an actor, director, teacher, playwright, producer, and recently screenplay-adapter. Distinguished themselves by Mamet’s genius for dramaturgy, Mamet’s works not only win him a lot of literary prizes, but three of his adaptations are also nominated for the Academy Awards. Mamet was born of Jewish parents who were children of immigrants from Russia in 1947. When he was sixteen years old, Chicago-born David Mamet became the follower of Bob Sickinger, who is said as the inventor of “Chicago theatre.”1 Significantly, with the lowercase letter “t,” Chicago “t”heatre means not to serve for the downtown or the so-called “the white-collar.” The experience of being Sickingner’s pupil profoundly influences Mamet’s ideas of dramaturgy. Moreover, Mamet himself actually 1 See William Herman, Understanding Contemporary American Drama (South Carolina: U of South Carolina P, 1987) 125. It is suggested that “we[Chicago theater] were something new: we were the neighborhood getting together and talking about the world …no Shakespeare in Eton collars, no sex comedies.” Chen 2 did many different kinds of jobs to temporarily sustain his life before, like cab driver, short-order cook, factory worker, window washer, land-selling telecommunicator and so on. Hence, it is observed that nearly all characters in Mamet’s plays are not from the high-class, and the sites of the plays are set usually in marginal places, such as a real-estate office (Glengarry Glen Ross), a resale shop (American Buffalo), a radio station (Mr. Happiness), the Lakeboat (Lakeboat), a living room (The Cryptogram) and so forth. Mamet’s characters are “fringe characters” (Language as Dramatic Action 85), according to Mamet’s own notion, and they live on the frontier of society. Mamet asserts, while “looking at a large picture, you don’t go to the top of the foodchain of the King but to the little people,” and he considers that “that which best expresses an integrated idea of the nation is not only those who are in power” (Language as Dramatic Action 85). Only by demonstrating the life of these “little people” can Mamet wonderfully examine the unscrupulousness and the corruption of American society. Most of Mamet’s plays provide the readers with morality-corrupted societies, in which people lack the capability of making a good connection with others. They search for a stable relationship with each other; however, in order to preserve their own benefits,

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