Panopticism In The Novels Of John Berger And Michel Foucault

Within the books of John Berger and Michel Foucault’s thoughts and ideas, they’re shown throughout their short anthologies. In “Ways of Seeing” and Panopticism; we see a lot of similarities and differences between the authors. From the way they write, to the way they express, to the way they think about their emotions and how they translate it out to their readers. John Berger talks about how we have our own perspectives on seeing things and how we can maintain different views in our society. Michel Foucault talks about how individuals are seen in the society and how others have the power to control them. They compare and contrast thoughts, as well as point of views through their anthologies towards the way they feel about power, and society …show more content…
Foucault talks about how the plague had begun to take control over the society making things different in that era. It starts off with locking people up in their own house, and being punished if you lie about a loved one being infected. This is where you start to see the power in their society build up. The people did not put an end to the power that the authorities had over them. This leads up to the idea and construction of the panopticon; which led people to start believing in a new theory. The panopticon at that time was believed to form structure in their society by building this prison system at that time. It was a circular building with individual rooms where the prisoners were kept. In the center of the building there was a tall tower imitating a light tower. Inside this tower, you can see all the inmates, but from the outside nothing was visible to the inmate’s eyes. This system gave the impression that the prisoners were being individually watched at all times, which caused the prisoners to follow the rule to avoid punishment. Foucault believes that the power of society that we live in today is the same as the panopticons. He thinks that the institutions say what is right and wrong about our actions. We live and are raised behind these institutional rules on how to behave, and we are also taught to follow these rules at such a young age, because we think it’s normal. Foucault also explains how we accept the illusion of being watched at all times by following their rules. We do what is expected of us only because that is what everyone else is doing. We hold each other accountable for doing the right thing at all times if you break the rules you are seen as a different individual. We do not need authority figures around all the time because the allusion of someone watching us is there at all times. This is causing the people to be scared of breaking the rules not only