Cartographies of structures of power a study of select works of Mario Vargas Llosa

Abstract

he thesis titled “Cartographies of Structures of Power: A Study of Select Works of Mario Vargas Llosa” is an attempt to theoretically analyse and conceptualise the dynamics of power represented in the works of Mario Vargas Llosa. A Latin American-Peruvian Nobel laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa’s works are interwoven with the intricacies of structures of power present within the different societal institutions. The thesis pays attention to the numerous layers of power with its subtle nuances that come to act in the select works of Vargas Llosa, including The Time of the Hero (1963), The Green House (1966), Conversation in the Cathedral (1969) and The Feast of the Goat (2000). The research argues that the different aspects of power found in these novels can be brought into the Foucauldian theoretical framework of power. It also refers to the theories of power put forth by scholars like Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber, Thomas Hobbes, Pierre Bourdieu and Antonio Gramsci. The thesis also attempts to bring out the elements of the Foucauldian Resistance in the works of Vargas Llosa. Power exists in every institution, every group and every individual in the society, regardless of age, gender, financial status or profession. There exists no society in which power is distributed equally. The discussion of power can be identified in the literary texts from time immemorial, including the ancient Greek and Indian classics. In his works Michel Foucault studies the history of society and analyses the exercise of power from the traditional to the modern period. He classifies power into three – sovereign power, disciplinary power and the biopower. The various forms of power such as the military power, masculine power, parental power, dictatorial power, psychological power and the religious power can be identified in the select works of the author; and are theoretically capable of being categorised under the disciplinary, sovereign and the biopower formulated by Foucault. Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony can also be applied to the fictional world of the select novels, where in a power-hierarchical relationship, the subordinate group permits itself to be dominated. Individuals in these works fail to recognise themselves as targets of power and are unaware of their objectified status in the way they are in conformity to certain norms and practices of the society. By performing their routine activities, they are unknowingly placed in a fixed position in the social hierarchy, which can be explained with the help of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and symbolic power.