Deep Thunder- 10/31

I am really impressed with the concept of ideology and its manifestation. I took this concept (Althusser) and applied to to Ideology in general in a recent paper for another class; I was so inspired. In a paper about James Joyce’s The Dead, I argued that because Gabriel’s ideology included a separation between the living and the dead (in the beginning of the story,) Michel Furey, his wife’s ex-lover, was banished to the land of the dead to the reader (as we see things primarily through Gabriel’s POV.) Once Gabriel becomes part of the Ideology of Gabreil, he is made material both to the characters in the story and to the reader as well. Here’s my thesis paragraph:
“I will argue that Gabriel’s ideology is manifested, made real, both before and after he learns of his wife’s ex-lover. Before he learns of his wife’s past, however, Gabriel has no knowledge of Michael Furey. Furey is then absent from Gabriel’s ideology and, since the story is told from Gabriel’s point of view, Michael is therefore not material to the reader either. Gabriel’s system of beliefs and ideology are challenged and correspondingly recalibrated by his, the material is recalibrated in turn. Although Furey is dead, he then becomes part of Gabriel’s ideology and therefore as real as to Gabriel (and the reader) as he was to Gretta. Gabriel’s change in ideology essentially evokes Michael from the dead, an unwitting, unconscious séance if you will, and this evocation of Michael Furey shatters the pane between the living in the dead.
I don’t know if it’s commonly accepted to take his Althusser’s theories out of the context of the controlling apparatus, but I did. So there.