https://doi.org/10.31648/pl.9083
This article is an attempt to describe subjectivation (assujettissement), the concept of Michel Foucault, based on the example of the story of women in the tragicomedy Ants written by Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska. The play, which was staged in 1936, has a complex compositional
idea. The first and third acts take place in a totalitarian insect state, while the second act intersects and completes the story of the ants, similarly illustrating the obligation to procreate in patriarchy. The allegory of the anthill was used by the writer to represent the process of politicisation of
the female body in the fascist system. The growing-up heroines of the tragedy try to oppose the ideology of the anthill by fighting for individual freedom, including the right to abortion. Michel Foucault, in Discipline and Punish. The Birth of Prison, describes a process of disciplining which
takes place on several layers of subjectification. To the first layer of “power-knowledge” pleasure is added and combined with sexuality as a political instrument. An important context for the above discussion is the thought of Elizabeth Grosz, the author of corporeal feminism, who postulates a non-dualistic perception of the individual. Corporeality, which is an important theme of Ants, is a place where the influences of power and knowledge merge. Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska describes the story of a woman’s struggle for the right to freedom. The solution, as it seems, is love and the possibility of women and men working together. A society in which women are not forced to comply with the demands of reproductive politics will become healthier and happier.
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