Manipulation of Mechanisms of Surveilance and Control: A Critical Analysis of Veronica Ruth's Diverget Trilogy

Abstract

Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy depicts a society where surreptitious surveillance is deeply embedded in its social structure. The current paper explores how totalitarian regime employs surveillance and ideology in tandem for the suppression and subjugations of its subjects. Michael Foucault's concept of Panopticon is used as a lens to unravel how surveillance is employed as a powerful tool for the control and containment of people. Foucault illustrates how Panopticon is used to exercise power on a human body to cultivate discipline and docility among inmates on a microscopic level. However, the study analyses how the totalitarian regime in Divergent trilogy uses the Foucauldian concept of Panopticon on the macroscopic level for the mass incarceration of the general public. In addition, the paper asserts that the present world has become a gigantic panoptic world where escape seems impossible.