Foucault's Theory of Panopticon in Benyamin's Goat Days
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International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124 Foucault’s theory of Panopticon in Benyamin’s Goat Days Ms.Priya Antony, Assistant Professor, Department of BBA, Bharata Mata College, Thrikkakara ABSTRACT: The aim of my study is to explore Foucault’s concept of Panopticon in Benyamin’s Goat Days. Panopticism is a social theory developed by Michel Foucault in his book, Discipline and Punish. Foucault discusses Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a building with a tower at the center from which it is possible to see each cell in which a prisoner is incarcerated. Each individual is seen but he never knows from where he is being observed. In the novel Goat Days, the Arab is the symbolic representation of the power which controls its subject through surveillance. This act of surveillance in the novel can be interpreted with Foucault’s concept of Panopticon. Visibility is a trap. Constant observation by the master created a kind of psychological as well as physical terror in the character Najeeb. The farm’s brutal supervisor keeps Najeeb in control with a gun and binoculars and frequently beats him with a belt. Through this apparatus of power Najeeb loses his real self and begins to behave like a goat.Desert occupies a space more than merely setting the backdrop to this novel. In this work, panoptic surveillance acts as disciplinary power system over an individual, rather than disciplining a society. It acts on individual freedom and leads to the dehumanization of particular person in the masara of Arabian country. The physical and mental torture which he faced in the masara is described by the victim. Thus, Najeeb, the protagonist becomes self-disciplining to the disciplinary power of the Arbab. Arbab acts as the force of supreme power and Najeeb becomes the representative of the powerless. Attribution of power by powerful over a powerless subject is well illustrated by the novelist. Controlled activity is the key element of the novel. For every activity in the desert and masara, Arbab maintained an organized order for Najeeb and all duties of the masara was performed in a systematic way. Though his life is miserable a systematic behaviour is expected by the Arbab from Najeeb. Such a control is an indispensible part of a disciplinary power. Desert has always been a mysterious place yet difficult to survive as well as comprehend for man. There are many works based on diasporic literature which focus on the experiences and analyses the problems, burden and longing for homeland.TheNitaqat system, the Saudi labour policy reserving ten percent of jobs for locals introduced in Saudi Arabia, agitated the lives of around six lakhs Kerala migrants. The displacement of Arab workers caused by the Gulf war affected the South Asian migrant labourers most. The inefficient socioeconomic structures of their homelands forced them to spend most of their life span away from their families working as slaves for extremely low wages. Often they have to survive in poor unhygienic conditions and have their passports held by employers. It is their experiences of suffering and survival that the Indian author Benyaminin his much acclaimed novel Aadujeevitham(2008) voices through the narrator-protagonist, Najeeb Muhammad who is a real life person. It is translated into English in the name Goat Days (2012) by an English Professor Joseph Koyipally.The forty three chapters of the novel begin in the “prison”, hazardous life of the main character Najeeb in the “desert”, final “escape” and “refuge” to the home country. This study focuses on Michel Foucault’s concept of Panopticon in the novel which results to the deconstruction of Najeeb’s identity and the loss of his real self. The concept of the design mainly ensures surveillance in prison but in the novel for Najeeb, prison act as a relief for him and it is the desert and Arbab who represents the Panopticism. The alienation of a man in a desert becomes a powerful symbol of a life in a neo globalized world were we drop our capacity to distinguish between dream and reality. Volume 7, Issue XI, November/2018 Page No:408 International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124 Panopticism is a social theory discussed by Michel Foucault as a disciplinary structure in his book, Discipline and Punish (1977) and also in an interview entitled ‘The Eye of Power’ (1980). “The Panopticon is an architectural device described by the eighteenth century philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, as a way of arranging people in such a way that, for example, in a prison it is possible to see all of the inmates without the observer being seen and without any of the prisoners having access to one another.” (Mills 45) Discipline may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets. And it may be taken over either by specialized institutions (houses of correction) or by institutions that use it as an essential instrument for a particular end (schools, hospitals) or by state apparatuses whose major function is to assure that discipline reigns over society as a whole (the police). The disciplines are techniques for assuring the ordering of human multiplicities. But the pecularity of the disciplines is that they try to define in relation to the multiplicities a tactics of power that fulfils two criteria: first, to obtain the exercise of power at the lowest possible cost; second, to bring the effects of this social power to their maximum intensity and to extend them as far as possible, without either failure or interval. Discipline arrests or regulates movements, it dissipates compact groupings of individuals wandering about the country in unpredictable ways, and it establishes calculated distributions. It must also master all the forces that are formed from the very constitution of an organized multiplicity, it must neutralize the effects of counter power that spring from them and which forms a resistance to the power that wishes to dominate it-that may establish horizontal conjunctions. (Rabinow 206- 207) The innovations of forcible power are all brought together in a single architectural innovation, “The Panopticon”. That is every person is isolated in a small room where they all may be observed at all times by a single person in the central tower. Each person could be clearly seen by the central observer but each inmate would see neither the observer nor any other inmate. The new mode of punishment is designed for constant, anonymous surveillance of its subjects. Under this surveillance, the person never knows if or by whom he is being watched and the subject is automatically trained to resist any impulse of misbehaviour. Jeremy Bentham envisioned the same basic concept for prisons, factories, schools, camps, hospitals etc. A.S.P Ayyar through his historical novels namely Baladitya(1930) and Three Men of Destiny (1939) tries to subvert the notion of panopticism into synopticism, implicitly conveying the idea of a free India. Throughout the novel the narrator has been constantly observed by the Arbab which can be connected to Foucault’s concept of panopticon. Though the concept is designed to organize a group or for the correction home, in the novel the Arbab use it to observe his slave and not a group. It is the protagonist Najeeb who is regularly observed by the Arbab. The Arbab makes Najeeb conscious that he is frequently surveyed and therefore has to follow the codes prescribed. If he breaks any of the rules, he will be killed. Existence for Najeeb becomes a hazardous task. Each day he experiences relentless surveillance by his Arbab with a pair of binoculars and a double barrelled gun.Najeeb’s daily work inside and outside the masara were always controlled by the omniscient presence of the Arbab. So he had a fear in his mind that he was constantly observed by someone. So the fear generated in his mind forced him to continue as a slave in the masara. As a result his life was suppressed and controlled by a power. He was compelled to do exhausting jobs without adequate amount of food and water and sometimes we see that he is unable to fulfil his primary needs. Whenever he tried to escape, he was caught and severely punished. Volume 7, Issue XI, November/2018 Page No:409 International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124 Najeeb was an aspiring young man who desired to go abroad for a better living. He was a man who lived in the midst of poverty. Once when a friend told him about a visa for sale, he felt a desire that had never experienced before as it was a usual carving of most of the ordinary malayalis. As he was a worker of sand mining, it was a huge task for him to meet the daily expenditure of his family. He somehow managed to pay for the visa and as every person at that time did, he went by train to Bombay. He stayed with his friend Sasi for one week and went to Dubai. During his journey he had a companion named Hakeem. As informed by the Bombay agency they waited for their sponsor at the airport for a long while. Later an Arab came and took them along with him to the masara (house of goats). Hakeem and Najeeb were sent to different places and the real agony of Najeeb began in the masara where he had no water, no proper food and no shelter. The only food that he could get was plain water and khubus (a special kind of food in gulf countries).