Ideology and Subjectivity

You cannot have your true self save you free yourself from the ideologies surrounding you. However, ideology is an inevitable fact in human being's life which restricts you in achieving your true self. It seems that ideology puts a distance between the individual and the self. Regarding the relation between self and ideology, the French Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser, discusses subjectivity in terms of ideology. He refers to the term interpellation , believing that ideology exists in the behavior of people acting according to their beliefs. He provides a connection between ideology and subjectivity. He states that the category of the subject is constitutive of all ideology. Moreover, he adds that all ideology has the function of constituting the individuals as subjects. In this respect, the role of ideology can be studied in Tom Stoppard's plays, Night and Day, Hapgood and Indian Ink. Each of the above-mentioned plays has a female character that seems not to have any subjectivity on the basis of the dominant ideologies in their lives. This thesis attempts to find the common ideologies existing in the plays, which have taken the female characters away from their true selves.