A Machereyan Reading of Francis Godwin’s the Man in the Moone

Seventeenth-century Britain was going through plenty of transitions, and science was gaining respect as a force that was enhancing changes by shattering the ideas that the church had imposed since the Middle Ages, forbye providing man with new inventions and advancements. The Man in the Moone is one of the first utopian science fiction novels, and it successfully landed a sixteenth-century Spaniard on the moon only to find a utopia there built by Lunars. By the time Godwin’s book was published, the Copernican Revolution had brought authorities into turmoil, and the discussions on the probability of extra-terrestrial life had already begun. The book expresses these novel ideas in a subtle narration and criticizes the institutions of its own time by providing a utopian alternative on another planet. With an eye on the historical context of the work and the scientific advancements of its time, it will be examined in a closed Marxist reading, primarily based on Pierre Macherey’s theory which highlights “the ideological project” of a literary work by focusing on “gaps”, “silences”, and the “unsaid” in the text which shape its “speech”. Macherey’s theory highlights “the ideological project” of a literary work by focusing on the “unsaid” in the text, which shapes its “speech”. Furthermore, regarding Macherey’s ideas on the link between ideology and narrative, the article sets out to find the narrative’s central topic to describe the imaginary/symbolic system put into the ideological project’s service.

Keywords:

Marxist Reading , Pierre Macherey , Theory of Gaps , Utopian Fiction , Science Fiction