Author Archives: Patrick Meyers

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses by Louis Althusser 1969-70 This is my last post, and it’s going to be a short one, but I want to offer a quick shoutout to an article that professor Meadows gave me at the … Continue reading →

Debtor’s Prisons were one of the darker parts of the society in which Dickens was raised. Unable to pay off debts, prisoners were forced to perform hard labor while incarcerated—slowly paying back the debts to the state, or debt-distributer, and … Continue reading →

Of all of the Dickens scenes that we read this semester, one in particular stands out—Nancy Sikes death scene.  In fact, in all of the subsequent works by Dickens, there was never anything quite as shocking or grotesquely, vividly depicted … Continue reading →

What would Christmas be today had Dickens never intervened? According to a Blog Post by David Parker on a UC Santa Cruz website, Christmas was actually in quite the decline at the time of Dickens’ writing. For although the poor … Continue reading →

When Dickens wrote “A Walk in a Workhouse,” he was attempting a behind-the-scenes view at a life that many people in his age did not live. He provided a depiction of “the other side”—a look at “the dropped child [that] … Continue reading →

Dickens and Gaskell set the stage in texts such as A Christmas Carol and Mary Barton to consider food as a capitalist commodity, as they depict it in a style likened to contemporary and modern advertisements. Food becomes a symbol … Continue reading →

Social media, particularly that of Twitter and Facebook, is known for the speed with which it transmits ideas from one individual to global awareness. Moreover, social media is characterized by the way in which it allows each of its users … Continue reading →

Wilkie Collins’ Woman in White opens with the line, “this is the story of what a woman’s patience can endure, and what a man’s resolution can achieve” (Pg 3). Yet, this is only the beginning of a novel problematic though-and-through … Continue reading →

At the beginning of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels famously wrote, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle” (pg. 9) They went on to argue that, “society as a whole is more and … Continue reading →

“I didn’t want my shoes to be limited or cost $300 … that was a decision by the company … I just want people to have what I make. I think in clothing right now there is a real separatism. … Continue reading →