The Practice of State Ideological Apparatuses in Matthew Pearl’s the Dante Club
Abstract
Abstract
The Dante Club is an American historical fiction written by Matthew Pearl. Thestory takes place in the state of Massachusetts during the aftermath of theAmerican Civil War. The two major issues presented in the novel are xenophobia and anti-Catholicism. Specifically, it tells about a controversy over the Italian literary work, “Divine Comedyâ€, which is being translated into English by a group of notable poets named Dante Club. Their endeavor is considered as promoting Catholicism which is subjectively interpreted as an act of threatening the state. Based on Louis Althusser’s theoretical perspective, the work of the state authorities to hinder the group’s effort is seen as the manifestation of ideological practice. The theory points out that such an interference may commonly be found to be performed by two types of powerful institution, namely Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs).This study discusses the practice of state ideology which is intended to maintain the state power as described in the novel. The focus is on answering the question of how ISAs and RSAs are authorized to exert their role to control people as well as to influence them on behalf of the state.
Keywords: Ideology, Ideological State Apparatuses, Repressive State Apparatuses, Divine Comedy
Full text article
References
Althusser, Louis. (1971). Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. London: Monthly Review Press.
Barry, Peter. (1995). Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Horton, Rod W. And Herbert W. Edwards. (1967). Second Edition.
“Unitariansism and Transcendentalismâ€. New York: Meredith Publishing Company.
Kavanagh, James H. “Ideologyâ€. Critical Terms for Literary Study.
Second Edition. Edited by Frank Letricchia and Thomas
McLaughlin. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago
Press. 1995. 306 - 320.
Pearl, Matthew. (2004). The Dante Club. London: Vintage.
Queen, Edward L., Stephen R. Prothero, Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr. (Ed.). (2001) “anti-Catholicism.†Encyclopedia of American Religious History. New York: Facts On File.
Storey, John. (1997). “Althusserianismâ€. An Introduction to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. 2nd Edition. Second Edition. London: Prentice Hall.
Authors
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work