چکیده:
Faustus has a long history in European literature although its origin is obscure. David Mamet, in a modern version of the old legend, presents a new perspective on the issues of power and truth. Michel Foucault, the influential post-structuralist historian and philosopher of the 20th century, gives a novel insight into the nature of power relations and its manner of operation within human societies. In this sense, Foucault posits that power and knowledge are the same; moreover, power and resistance coexist in every social interaction. The current study aims to investigate the power relations in David Mamet’s Faustus in a Foucauldian framework. Faustus’s model of the periodic power offers a rigid paradigm to explain the mechanism of the world. Human will and resistance have no place in Faustus’s ideology. However, the study shows how Faustus gets disillusioned as he becomes aware of the hidden power relations functioning around him. It concludes that the significant role of truth and knowledge in power relations leads to the emergence of confession, reward, and punishment: discourses which entangle the individual in a complex web of power and resistance.
خلاصه ماشینی:
It concludes that the significant role of truth and knowledge in power relations leads to the emergence of confession, re- ward, and punishment: discourses which entangle the individual in a complex web of power and resistance.
Schvey in “The Plays of David Mamet: Games of Ma- nipulation and Power” investigates the issue of power in relation to the politics of the world with regard to the blank spaces within statements which can be “as part of a game involving manipulation or power” (Schvey, 1988, pp.
Taking these potentials into consideration, the present paper studies the relations of power in Faustus which revolve around truth and knowledge with regard to human beings and society as a whole.
This paper investigates the way Faustus’s idea about the predictability and periodicity of the mechanism of the world is invalidated; moreover, how Faustus is influenced by the dominant discourses and how he gets out of the power network in the end is analyzed.
Foucauldian idea of productivity of power and its effect on producing new discourses as modes of resistance determine the power relations in the play.
Faustus’ son shapes one of the resisting points in the network of the power relations within the family and the whole play.
Therefore, it can be concluded that according to Mamet, the very essential part of power relations and what gives dominance to special discourses is the system of reward and punishment which in turn is contingent on the game of truth and knowledge.