Religion, Power, and Social Discipline in Joyce’s The Dead and Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter

Abstract

This study investigates the representation of religion as a mechanism of social control in James Joyce’s The Dead and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concepts of power, discipline, and institutional authority, the paper explores how religious discourse regulates individual behaviour and shapes moral life within distinct historical and cultural contexts. Although the two texts emerge from different periods and geographical settings, both depict religion as deeply embedded in everyday practices and social structures. Through close textual analysis, the study demonstrates that Joyce presents religious power in subtle forms, through ritual, silence, internalized guilt, and emotional paralysis, whereas Hawthorne portrays religious authority through overt mechanisms of public shaming, surveillance, and fear of divine punishment. In both narratives, religion functions as a disciplinary system that legitimizes control and normalizes obedience. The paper argues that the relationship between individuals and religious institutions, represented by the church and its clergy, is founded primarily on fear rather than spiritual devotion. By comparing these works, the study reveals how literary texts critique religion not as a transcendent spiritual force, but as a historically situated institution aligned with political authority and systems of power.