Gay Resistance to Panoptic Persecutions in Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me

• Main Authors: Tsai, Yi Shan, 蔡宜珊
• Other Authors: Jiang, Estelle Tsui Fen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/645rj2

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 英國語文學研究所 === 100 === The psychological condition of the HIV-positive is always peripheral to the governmental studies of HIV/AIDS in the United States. Compared with the governmental studies, Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart (1985) and The Destiny of Me (1992) lay more emphases on the psychological conditions and transformations of the HIV/AIDS patients. These two plays demonstrate the homophobic disciplines and regulations performed against the homosexual HIV-positives in the discourse of HIV/AIDS. In addition, through Ned Weeks's transformation and resistance, these two plays illuminate on the lesson, self-knowledge, and self-reconciliation that empower the diseased gay men to survive in the crisis of HIV/AIDS. This thesis makes resort to the studies of Michel Foucault, particularly his concepts of anatomo-politics and biopolitics as well as his exegeses of the dynamics between the persecutor and the persecuted. Foucault's theories are insightful in understanding the underlying homophobia behind the policies in a normalizing society. His studies envision the possibilities of resistance alongside these homophobic panoptic persecutions. This thesis is divided into four chapters. The second chapter examines the disciplines and regulations over the diseased homosexuals in The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me. The third chapter focuses on the transformations of Ned from a polemicist to a reconciliationist as well as his resistance to the panoptic persecutions. The concluding chapter reconfirms that the lesson and growth of a gay HIV-positive patient rests on self-reconciliation.