Power Structure and power of Knowledge: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Vidal’s Selected Essays

Abstract

The study is a critical discourse analysis of the essays of Gore Vidal (1925–2012), a famous American intellectual, thinker and writer. He has written a number of books on serious topics related to world politics. His essays are packed with wit, wisdom, and erudition. The present study explores power structures, knowledge as power and binary oppositions. It further highlights oppression of the have notes by the haves. Moreover the study also covers democratic values and American supremacy as propounded by Vidal. The study is a critical discourse analysis of the selected essays – A Passage to Egypt and The Second American Revolution. The aim of the study was to critically examine the discourse of Vidal and uncover the relationship between power structures, the powerful and the powerless, us and them. For the said purpose the three dimensional model of Norman Fairclough is utilized to interpret the selected texts. It describes there is difference between process and product; therefore, a text is not a process but a product. It takes place in some social context and interaction. This model has three stages that are, description, interpretation, and explanation. Hence, it is a critical, textual, and discursive study.