The Ideology of the Illiterate: A Marxist Reading of Okot p’ Bitek’s ‘Song of Lawino’ and Abdul Rahman Alabnudi’s ‘The Letters of Heraji Elgot

Abstract

This thesis discusses the process of consciousness reformation and ideology affirmation of the illiterate social subjects that happens in an implicit manner based upon observing and experiencing. The thesis studies this process of consciousness reformation and affirmation of the ideology of the lower classes and the colonized social subjects in two books of poems, the Ugandan Song of Lawino and the Egyptian The Letters of Heraji Elgot. The thesis proves that the two texts belong to the category of tendentious literature whose writers function as organic intellectuals and committed writers. In delineating the process of consciousness re-formation of the illiterate social subjects, the thesis sticks to the Marxist framework of reference that gives due importance to the study of the term ‘ideology’ as well as other related terms like Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs),