“Get in Touch with Mother”: Future Home of the Living God and a New Leper Village

Abstract

The society in Erdrich's Future Home of the Living God allegedly elevates women, but actually isolates them through oppressive surveillance technologies to maintain control. Read in light of Foucault's concept of the “leper” and the “panopticon” from Discipline and Punish, Erdrich's novel shows that Foucaultian power structures further oppress marginalized groups such as women of color.