ideological state apparatuses

Afghanistan is a country besieged by years of instability and unrest as a result of the weak governments that have seized power, especially after King Zahir. Mohammad Asef Soltanzade’s “Brazen Bulls” is the story of the tragedy that befalls a country similar to Afghanistan. The story is an allegory of the atrocities committed against the civilians and the civilians who resort to extreme forms of violence to counteract the government and occupied forces’ measures. The novel has propensities for dialogical analysis as a result of the voices that represent different discourses in the present-day Afghanistan. This paper is an attempt to link the text of the novel to the discursive and social practices that gave rise to the emergence of such novels. It aims to illustrate the way in which literary products could engender discourses that are necessary for forcing effective changes in hegemonic discourse over time. The methodology used to fulfill the purposes of the paper and generate discussion is the critical discourse analysis endorsed by Norman Fairclough.

The present research argues that it seems not all writers and their works may fall into an omnipresent ideology trap as Althusser conceives it; or unlike what Althusser holds, not all fictional characters are ‘interpellated”. Therefore, this research gives focal attention to reconsidering Althusser notion of ideology and his Ideological State Apparatus, ISAs, especially the cultural ISA through a descriptive-analytical method. Reed’s novel, The Free-Lance Pallbearers (1967), enjoying circumstantial artistic, religious, ethnic, racial, and literary characters, presents protagonists who not only refute or subvert this domineering ideology but also reshape and redefine it, making it necessary to reconsider Althusserian definition of literature as a cultural ISA. The novel, parodying “the Afro-American tradition of first-person, confessional narratives” is read as a microcosm to repudiate Althusser’s macrocosmic notions of reality. All through, the findings indicate that through the course of the novel, Reed subverts the dominant cultural and ideological discourse of American society through questioning the White standards from language and notions of reality to the ruling system.