Ideology And Repressed State Apparatus Analysis

The violence of power is used to oppress citizens and maintain authority. A society functions with a base and superstructure, the superstructure in turn consists of two parts “Ideological State Apparatus” and “Repressed State Apparatus”. To place people in their proper place in society, Althusser argued that assimilation happens in two ways, through repressive means, and through ideological means where one happens through force, the other through ideas. The Repressed State Apparatus functions as an integrated unit as conflicting to the Ideological State Apparatus which is sundry and plural. However, what unites the disparate Ideological State Apparatuses’ is the fact that they are ultimately controlled by the ruling ideology.
Althusser in his essay, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses regards the state, as a repressive apparatus which is favourable to the rich and used as a tool to suppress and dominate the working class. Henceforth, the ruling class possesses the state power and misuse it. Assef represents the Pashtuns who raped Hassan as a young boy and as an adult rapes Sohrab and uses brass knuckles to display his power. Hassan was tolerant and tried to move on in life, whereas, Sohrab remains totally …show more content…
Hassan always accepted Amir as his friend, whereas Amir did not accept Hassan’s friendship. At every stage, Hassan was exploited by the Pashtuns because of his physical appearance and his class. The only person who cared for Hassan was Ali, who was very affectionate with him. The power given to the Pashtuns were misused to make fun or snub the poor Hazaras, for maintaining their power. Throughout the novel, there is a master-slave relationship, but, towards the end there is a slight change after Sohrab enters Amir’s life. The final scene ends with Amir flying a kite along with Sohrab and they win over another kite. The novel ends on a positive note where Amir seems to let go off the master-slave