ation. As Marx explains, for the wealthy and powerful alienation is positive and reinforcing, whereas for the proletariat the alienation is negative and destructive and shapes the structure of society.
The possessing class and the proletarian class represent one and the same human self-alienation. But the former feels satisfied and affirmed in this self-alienation, experiences the alienation as a sign of its own power, and possesses in it the appearance of a human existence. The latter, however, feels destroyed in this alienation, seeing . . . the contradiction between its human nature and its life-situation (Marx 133-4).
Marx's focus is, of course, on class, not on "engendered" social experience. But Mrs. Wright's response to the conditions of her existence is barely distinguishable from the proletarian behavior Marx anticipates. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters by no means accomplish Marx's vision, but subversion in the service of alienated social actors (Mrs. Wright) is a little like stepping out of the circle, and once the system is successfully sabotaged, revolution becomes a part of the discourse of experience.
Foucault's analysis of social relationships is similar to Marx's in that he sees differentials of power among social actors, hence oppression as a fact of experience. In the classical and Renaissance world, he says, "power was the right to decide life and death" (Foucault Reader 258) and by implication the right to seize person and property. From the 17th century onward, power as the right of life or death evolved to power as the right to determine quality of life. Thus power became an aspect of ongoing social relationships rather than simple decisions to seize life or property, and it is in the background of Foucault's reference to "the regime of truth which is so essential to the structure and functioning of our society" (Power 132).
Fundamentally, according to Foucault's line of thought, the regime defines truth bec...