The perception of ideology has been a chief idea in the works of numerous Marxist critics, largely Althusser, Jameson, and Eagleton for its powerful role in literary criticism. Terry Eagleton, the prominent English critic largely inclined by Louis Althusser’s Marxist concepts in literary criticism, has also played a central role in emerging the field of literary criticism, particularly the Marxist literary theory.
Terry Eagleton shares the same idea saying that ideology does not only inject its own beliefs but it also “denigrates ideas which might challenge it”, excluding rival forms of thought, “obscuring social reality”. The use of language by the power holders as a weapon to inject the dominant ideology of the society is argued by Lacan and Kristeva as well.
Eagleton observes the bond between literature and ideology, writing that the text may look to be free in its use of ideology, or systems of representation, which shape the individual’s image of lived experience. In “The Rise of English”, published in Literary Theory where Eagleton claims that literature worries not simply beauty and spiritual elevation, but the social control of the middle and working classes, asserting that literature, like formal religion, is deeply involved in the reproduction of the dominant social order.
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Eagleton trusts that it is not essential to speak of literature and ideology as two distinct singularities because “Literature, in the meaning of the word we have inherited, is an ideology”. Eagleton believes that the philistine middle class, who were unable to boost up their rising power with a powerful ideology, found the solution in English literature. Ideology is acknowledged as a commonsense view of things presented by the powerholder class. In this way the interests of the ruling class are secured.
So now based on quote of Terry Eagleton, I would like to criticize the play Volpone that I have studied in this semester. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England, the change in classes of value ensuing from a money economy conflicted with older forms of institutionalized values. Ben Jonson’s dramatic satire Volpone (1606) identifies social evils rising from the developing proto-capitalist culture of his time. Though Jonson analyses the harsh impact of a money culture, the two distinct embodiments of moral good in Jonson’s play.
The play itself starts with Volpone apparently unable to simply enjoy his wealth and prosperity. He and his servant Mosca have a plan already formed to increase Volpones prosperity by imagining that he is dying in order to draw forth various prospective heirs. Throughout the 1st act we are introduced to all four scavengers- Voltore, the vulture; Corbaccio, the raven; Corvino the crow and lady politic would be. It takes us until act 2 to meet anyone who owns any morality whatsoever. This play goes beyond simple immortality. It shows the mental state of the main characters and their ideology that everything is there for them to possess. Jonson shows us the way in which avarice has begun to consume the lives of the main characters thus emphasizing that the plays stance on greed is a moralistic one, intended to teach the viewers what greed’s real consequences are.
On the shallow the play does have a moral purpose in the sense that all immortal characters are punished, and the moral characters are rewarded. This is of course a sheer reflection on social ideology off the period. Women would have been second rate citizens without question. However, it does have been 2nd rate citizen without question. However, it does illustrate that although the moral purpose in Vopone is seeming in the traditional way that it ends in the moral prosper, the immortal does not, it is done to a questionable extent the punishment given out undermine true morality certainly biblical morality.
Lastly Literature, as well-defined by Eagleton earlier, is an ideology. Eagleton suggests that the growth of English studies in the later nineteenth century was caused by the failure of religion, something he believes was a very simple yet powerful form of ideology that was above all else a mollifying influence. Apparently, English literature worked as a suitable replacement. English became a subject used to cultivate the middle class and infuse them with some values of the leftover aristocracy.
