Language and Translation Studies (LTS)

Prison as the Paradigm of Modern United States: A Foucauldian Reading of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Iraj Soleymanjahan
Sadaf Ebrahimian

Department of English and General Studies, Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/lts.2025.94476.1365
Abstract
This study seeks to analyze normalization and its implications in Colson Whitehead’s novel The Nickel Boys through the lens of Michel Foucault’s theoretical framework. Thus, the researchers aim at employing Foucault’s theory of panopticon as the paradigm of the modern world to show how the American government, through dispersed educational, judicial, and disciplinary institutions across society, seeks to establish a homogeneous and conformist society in which individuals are thoroughly normalized. The findings of this research reveal that the American society depicted in the novel during the 1960s exemplifies the Foucauldian model of the modern world, where individuals are confined, controlled, and administered within various institutions, including reform schools, the judicial system, law, the police, and a matrix of other satellite institutions. Collectively, these institutions strive to produce docile, submissive, and obedient people who are devoid of individuality and whose identities rest on their being just like other people in society.  

Highlights

 

Keywords

Institutions
Michel Foucault
Normalization
Paradigm of the Modern World
The Nickel Boys
Subjects

 

 
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Language and Translation Studies (LTS)
Volume 58, Issue 3
Summer 2025
Pages 151-184

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