Ideology, Interpellation and False Consciousness: A Marxist Reading of American Fever (2022)

Abstract

American dream has always been a ubiquitous concept for ages. It is the nature of human beings to crave for more, people always try to seek better opportunities in order to have a better status and class. For this purpose most of them prefer to migrate to the first world countries as these countries run the ideologies of equal status for all. This study aims to analyze this concept of American dream as a false consciousness in the novel American Fever (2022) by Dur e Aziz Amna. The researcher applied the theoretical framework of Marxism while specifically focusing on Louis Althusser's concept of ideology (Althusser, 1971). The novel follows the journey of the protagonist Hira from an urban area of Pakistan towards the rural areas of America for a one year student scholarship exchange program. Hira was fascinated by the economic and social equities that these first world countries promise but after living in the place she faced alienation. The researcher used descriptive qualitative research to deeply study the novel using Marxist reading and looked for the underlying ideologies by using Althusser's (1971) concept of ideological state apparatus and interpellation to explore how American dream becomes an ideological state apparatus that leads to false consciousness. The findings of the research reveal how Hira became an ideological subject due to the environment she was surrounded with, her surrounding acted as an ideological state apparatus. Initially, Hira was blind towards the manipulation and exploitation of the capitalist ideology of Americans but later on her illness and emotional turmoil made her realize that the dream she had was nothing more than false consciousness.