Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

50DeSalvo’s analysis of the narrator’s statement that “[t]here were several foolscap sheetscontaining many particulars respecting the life and conversation of one Hester Prynne, whoappeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage in the view of our ancestors” (30). DeSalvonotes that what is at stake here is the telling of the story of patriarchy: “ Hawthorne does notperceive the function of telling his tale as serving the causes of women’s history; rather,Hawthorne is using one woman’s story to serve the purposes of male history, both his own andmen in general (62). Consequently, Hawthorne’s reworking of this history, she argues, isactivated by a process of interpellation. Through this process of ideological interpellation, womenand individuals in general are turned into subjects. In “The Custom House” and The ScarletLetter ideological interpellation is conveyed through the use of tropology, mainly prosopopeia.This (ab)use is essential to trace Hawthorne’s response to the fathers’ call to remember them andreinscribe their ideology. As Althusser argues, the existence of ideology and interpellation ofindividuals as subjects are two faces of the same coin sincewhat thus seems to take place outside ideology (to be precise, in the street), in realitytakes place in ideology. What really takes place in ideology seems therefore to take placeoutside it. That is why those who are in ideology believe themselves by definition outsideideology. One of the effects of ideology is the practical denial (denegation) of theideological character of ideology: ideology never says, “I am ideological.” (118; originalitalics)Most subjects, according to Althusser, are caught up in the meshes of their so-called free will,which is but ideological. Accordingly, they fail to recognize the ISA, which is created to punishanyone who resists the dominant ideologythe ideology of the Father or the Subject, to useLacanian terminology. I take up Eric Savoy’s argument that “Hawthorne’s recurring images of