Shakespearean Politics: Interpellation and Ideological State Apparatus in Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus ,

Abstract

This paper analyses the dramatic text of William Shakespeare’s plays namely Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus from the standpoint of Louis Althusser’s theoretical framework provided in the notion of Ideological State Apparatus and Interpellation. The paper foregrounds that ideological state apparatuses in the said plays work alongside the coercive arm of the state in subjecting protagonists of the plays in throes of processes of Interpellation. The effect of such interpellation and operation of ideological state apparatuses is the ascension of structures in dominance in the plays Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus by Shakespeare.