Reciprocity of Divergence and Surveillance of Power in Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” A Foucauldian Analysis

Michael Foucault (۱۹۲۶-۱۹۸۴), the French philosopher, had influence on many branches of thoughts in later ۲۰th century. His works are divided in two main philosophical phases. The first period of Foucault’s carrier, called Archaeology, dealing with examination the discourses which are uttered the conditions making a specific discourse be accepted as dominant knowledge in a particular period. The second half of Foucault’s mental phase is named Genealogy coping with some special terms such as power relations, discipline and punishment practices, and etc. The present study is to apply Foucault’s two main theories, Archeological and Genealogical, on Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” (۲۰۱۱). In the mentioned novel, there are power relations, some of which are institutionalized rather than being individualized. Here it is aimed, to clarify the Surveillance of Power through sociopolitical institutions in dystopian post-modern societies controlling individual. In Veronica Roth’s novel, Society’s networks of power are trying to impose their own discourse and knowledge as the ideal ones through using some disciplinary practices on individuals. Moreover, it would be discussed that diverse institutions concentrate on individual's mind to make docile bodies and to determine some particular discourse as the dominant one, and some pieces of information as the true and absolute knowledge in the given period. Therefore, this paper anchors its analysis of Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” on Foucault’s concept of power to demonstrate the reality of retain layers of surveillance that obliterate any attempts for change. Moreover, the study foregrounds the destructive consequences of any form of resistance against the totalitarian and panoptic supervision of the government by means of threatening the deviants. The “Divergent” represents a repressive ideological agenda that reinforces certain social order and identity on its characters. Those, who resist as divergent against these networks of power and never accept the norms and rules of dominant discourse, are condemned to the penalty of silence and flee.