Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


sarahbullwinkelhpthesis.pdf (359.88 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

"Visibility is a Trap": Analyzing the Levels of the Foucauldian Panoptic Gaze in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series

Bullwinkel, Sarah Marie
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1367575512

Abstract Details

2013, Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, English.
The structures of power in the Potter universe are both evident and insidious. Whether one considers the disciplinary influences enforced by Headmaster and mentor Albus Dumbledore; The Ministry of Magic’s Fudge, Umbridge, and Scrimgeour; or, the power watching over them all: Voldemort, J.K. Rowling presents a world marked by surveillance and self-policing in her Harry Potter novels. These three levels of the Panoptic Gaze discipline Harry in various ways that ultimately result in producing him as a self-sacrificing hero at the series’ close. Rowling depicts an individual completely shaped by the authoritative gazes that inhabit his world; even the freedom he finds from those gazes is possible only because the gazes have created such spaces for him. In a series that seems to promote choice and agency for the day’s youth, one finds that in fact the hero has been trapped in his role since the night he received his lightning-bolt shaped scar.
Andrew Strombeck, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Barry Milligan, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Crystal Lake, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
86 p.
Literature
Harry Potter; Foucault; Panopticon; Panoptic Gaze; Discipline; Authority; Influence; Power; Choice; Michel Foucault; J.K. Rowling; Freedom

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Bullwinkel, S. M. (2013). "Visibility is a Trap": Analyzing the Levels of the Foucauldian Panoptic Gaze in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series [Master's thesis, Wright State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1367575512

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Bullwinkel, Sarah. "Visibility is a Trap": Analyzing the Levels of the Foucauldian Panoptic Gaze in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series. 2013. Wright State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1367575512.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Bullwinkel, Sarah. ""Visibility is a Trap": Analyzing the Levels of the Foucauldian Panoptic Gaze in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series." Master's thesis, Wright State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1367575512

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

wright1367575512
3,257
© 2013, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License "Visibility is a Trap": Analyzing the Levels of the Foucauldian Panoptic Gaze in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series by Sarah Marie Bullwinkel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Wright State University and OhioLINK.