Document Type : scientific-research
Authors
1 Department of Persian Language and Literature, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran
2 Full Professor Department of Persian Language and Literature, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran
3 Associate Professor Department of Persian Language and Literature, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran
Abstract
This article presents a critical and sociological examination of Notes of a Dictator by Hedayatollah Hakimollahi, offering a detailed analysis of the complex transformation of the protagonist from a seemingly justice-oriented, lower-class citizen into an ideologically driven, totalitarian dictator. The study seeks to uncover how social, psychological, and class-based conditions pave the way for this tragic trajectory, and how latent forces of power and ideology systematically convert a social actor—initially committed to liberation and justice—into a reproducer of the very violence against which they once rebelled.
The research employs a multilayered theoretical framework. First, critical Marxism, with an emphasis on class conflict, alienation, and structural inequalities, illuminates the economic and social foundations underlying the protagonist’s moral and political decline. Second, literary sociology, drawing on the insights of Lucien Goldmann and Georg Lukács, interprets the text as both a reflection and a representation of the material and class structures that shape human consciousness and social relations. Third, Michel Foucault’s concepts of power, discipline, and the production of knowledge allow for a nuanced reading of the subtle, often invisible processes of domination and ideological construction embedded within the narrative.
The findings suggest that the socialist discourse depicted in the novel, when severed from institutional oversight and participatory mechanisms, gradually loses its emancipatory potential. In conjunction with entrenched and pathological structures of power, this discourse transforms into a tool for legitimizing violence, suppression, and the reproduction of social inequality. The protagonist, initially emblematic of justice-seeking zeal and egalitarian ideals, becomes entrapped in ideological mechanisms akin to those theorized by Louis Althusser, reproducing both social and cognitive forms of subjugation. Ultimately, he emerges not as a liberator, but as an instrument of the ruling class, illustrating the intricate interplay between individual agency, ideological domination, and the structural forces that shape historical trajectories of oppression.
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