Center to Foucauldian analysis is the idea that “the purpose of criticism is to analyze the work through its structure, its architecture, its intrinsic form and the play of its internal relationships.” (Foucault 1980:102) and therefore avoids biographical views for being inaccurate. Frequently critics witness works from the same author that is drastically different from one another and makes it hard to believe that they are all works of the same author, thus a biographical approach is insufficient in dealing with them rising the question that if it’s the background of work and its author that led to the creation of a certain work then why two works that are not historically that much apart show different and sometimes opposite forms. Based …show more content…
The neighbors must have their ears glued to the walls. (Lorca 2007: 39) This idea of prison is repeated in Foucault’s analysis of French Prisons where more than the situation of the prison and prisoners, the rules and regulation that prisoners have great role in their administration is evaluated. Most of these rules came to existence from within and by the convicts themselves and then applied to them. In House of Bernarda Alba, the rules that the community itself has codified, is performed on individuals. So the whole setting of the play becomes a prison that its prisoners act against each other instead of befriending one another and working together to take down the powerful. Another important contribution of Foucault to the idea of power is its attempt to justify its vices. This idea is represented here through the story of Adelaida. MARTIRIO:…….Her father killed his first wife’s husband, in Cuba, in order to marry the wife. Then he abandoned her here, and went off with another woman who had a daughter, and then had an affair with the daughter, Adelaida’s mother, and married her when the second wife died insane. AMELIA: And why is the wretch not in jail? MARTIRIO: Because men cover up things of that nature among