权力暴力与生命救赎——生命政治学视阈下的《飞越疯人院》

Violence of Power and Salvation of Life——A Biopolitical Analysis of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest

肯·凯西的《飞越疯人院》表现了精神病院中病人生命备受权力压迫的处境,小说因探讨生命权力主题而成为吉奥乔·阿甘本式的生命政治隐喻小说。精神病院的病人之所以不断受到权力威胁,原因在于精神病院通过悬置法律和医疗方式实现了权力暴力的合法化和常态化,由此沦为阿甘本意义上的“例外状态”。但病人并非只是被权力所压迫的客体,也成为通过渎神和撤离策略对权力暴力进行反抗和对自我生命进行救赎的主体。通过对《飞越疯人院》的生命政治学解读可以发现,肯·凯西在小说中不仅揭示了权力的运作机制以及他的反抗意识,更体现出他对生命的积极态度。

Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest covered the biopolitical situation of patients in a mental hospital where lives were constantly oppressed by power.The novel concerning with the theme of biopower becomes the metaphor of biopolitics in the sense of Giorgio Agamben.The reason why patients in the mental hospital were endlessly threatened by power lies in the fact that the hospital rendered the violence of power legal and normalized with the suspension of law and medical treatment,thus reduced to being"state of exception"in Agamben sense.Patients in the hospital were not only objects of the oppression of power,but they were also subjects who sought for the resistance of the violence of power and salvation of their own life by profaning and withdrawal strategies.Through the biopolitical reading of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,the paper found that Ken Kesey revealed the operation of power and his resistance as well as his positive attitude towards life.