Ideological Constructs through the Medium of Fiction in Kafka's “In der Strafkolonie”

Abstract

“In der Strafkolonie” offers a highly effective fictionalized account of the overarching potency of power structures, as well as of the intrinsically ideological nature of power as such. Kafka's story could then be said to function as a critique of ideology, one whose implied conclusion coincides, to some extent, with that postulated by Louis Althusser in his essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” The first half of this article explores the parallels between the two texts, focusing on two main lines of inquiry: the semantic and metaphoric reverberations between Kafka's literalized apparatus and Althusser's notion of ideological state apparatuses, and the two accounts' thematic and conceptual preoccupation with the self-reproducing and ultimately empty structure of institutional power. The second half of this article, however, explores the ways in which the fictional status of Kafka's text allows for an ideology critique that is far more effective and revealing than Althusser's theoretical one. This, I argue, is enabled by the story's elimination of subjectivity qua subjectivity (which, according to Althusser, is a necessary condition for ideological interpellation).