ISHMAEL REED’S JAPANESE BY SPRING: A BATTLEGROUND FOR LOUIS ALTHUSSER AND FRANTZ FANON’S IDEAS

Abstract

This paper reads Ishmael Reed’s Japanese by Spring through the Ideological State Apparatuses of Louis Althusser to demonstrate if it accentuates the dominant ideological discourse or tries to topple it down. While Althusser considers literature as an ideological apparatus, Franz Fanon regards it as a liberating force. This study deals with the applicability of the two opposing approaches to Japanese by Spring. Since Reed’s novel revolves the state of culture and literature in American society, this research investigates how a particular cultural institute such as university blows the whistle and challenges the mechanisms of producing culture through presenting Chappie who is suffocating and interpellated as a subaltern other in an all dominant institutional entity. Altogether, the paper is concerned to see what respects of producing culture are exposed in Reed’s novel to resist the dominant cultural and ideological discourse of American society. The findings show that the novel is in line with with Fanon’s notion of “combat literature” and Reed does his best to outmaneuver the trap of all dominant ideology of Althusser.