Power and Identity: A Case Study on David Mamet’s Boston Marriage

This research is an endeavor to shed light on the issues about mechanism of power and its sociological implications in David Mamet’s Boston Marriage based on Michel Foucault’s views. Power circulates everywhere, or rather as something functioning in the form of a chain so that it is not repressive; rather it is productive and described as biopower. Furthermore, an individual’s identity is constructed through social relations over which he/she has less control. In this regard, the center of the discussion is on the concepts of power and identity, subjectivity and relational freedom. Therefore, Mamet’s characters live in a special social, cultural system with which mould their identities. The research demonstrates how Foucault’s views about sexuality as an instrument for biopower are shown in Mamet’s work to control and regulate individuals. The result shows that individuals attempt to put up much resistance against the authorities via the techniques and practices of self. However, their relational freedom is particularly determined by cultural constraints that are in the discursive regime of truth. Mamet’s characters are the products of the regime not a pre-given entity. Thus, the disciplinary control over their bodies and souls both subjugates individuals and constructs their subjectivities.

Keywords:

Biopower , Identity , Relational freedom , subjectivity