‘The Masses Make History’: On Jameson’s Allegory and Ideology

Abstract

Abstract This essay responds to Frederic Jameson’s Allegory and Ideology by arguing that this book is centrally concerned with the masses. By developing Jameson’s own model of allegorical reading, the pressure of the masses on the text is explored. This is demonstrated through a reading of Albert Camus’s The Plague, Jameson’s central example of ‘bad’ allegory. While this novel is ‘bad’ for implying a one-to-one allegorical relationship between the plague infection and the Occupation of France during World War Two, or to the human condition, a reading of the text as biopolitical allegory reveals the complex presence of the masses. Finally, this response considers the ‘immortality’ of the masses as the utopian moment traced within Allegory and Ideology.