Marxist Criticism

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Marxist Criticism
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Who is Karl Marx?

• He was a 19th-century philosopher, political
  economist, sociologist, humanist, political
  theorist and revolutionary. Often called the
  father of communism, Marx was both a scholar and
  a political activist.
• He was concerned particularly with the effect of
  the economy upon human life.
• He is the author of The Communist Manifesto.

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The Gist of the Theory

• All society revolves around economic conditions.
• No human exists on a social island.
• A person, according to Marxists, is a product of
  his or her economic conditions.

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Key Terms

• Class refers to the economic group to which one
  belongs
• Class conflict disputes between different
  classes (i.e. industrial working class v. the
  owners of production)
• Ideology ideas, beliefs, forms, and values of
  the ruling class that circulate through all the
  cultural spheres

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Key Terms Contd

• Hegemony force that designates the continuous
  ideological domination of the ruling class over
  all other classes through nonviolent means (i.e.
  church, school, family, media, arts, trade
  unions, etc.)
• Commodity a good or service produced primarily
  for monetary exchange and profit
• Carnivalesque forms of unofficial culture that
  resist official culture, political oppression,
  and totalitarian order through laughter, parody,
  and grotesque realism

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Marxism and Literature

• Literature reflects the social institutions that
  produce it.
• It is itself a social institution and has a
  particular ideological function.
• Literature reflects class struggle and
  materialism.
• Literary works are themselves products of their
  respective eras.

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Questions a Marxist Critic Asks

• What role does class play in the work what is
  the author's analysis of class relations?
• How do characters overcome oppression?
• In what ways does the work serve as propaganda
  for the status quo or does it try to undermine
  it?
• What does the work say about oppression or are
  social conflicts ignored or blamed elsewhere?
• Does the work propose some form of utopian vision
  as a solution to the problems encountered in the
  work?

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Keep in Mind

• How power is distributed in the work
• The function of and concern with wealth within
  the work
• The ways the characters express their own
  socioeconomic class
• The socioeconomic class of the author and the
  time period in which he or she wrote
• The way the work supports or refutes the hegemony
  (ruling force).

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Key Ideas

• Stages of History
• Feudalism
• Capitalism
• Communism
• Materialism
• Mode of production (agricultural) (industrial)
• Means of production (Bourgeoisie)

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Ideas Cont.

• Class struggle
• Each system is characterized by the exploitation
  of one class over the other
• Dialectic
• Thesis- one condition
• Antithesis- brings in the opposite condition
• Synthesis-two opposites will be in conflict until
  the produce a higher stage
• Internal contradictions
• Each class system carries the seeds of its own
  distruction

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Cont.

• Capitalism
• Cruelest
• Ownership concentrated in the ever shrinking
  upper class
• Working class
• More and more tech
• Fewer and fewer jobs
• Wages pushed ever downward
• Worker more and more alienated

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Cont.

• Class Consciousness
• Workers will become aware of their condition
• End of history
• Class conflict the engine of change
• Communism end class
• System free of exploitation will last forever

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Apply It

• Think of two major ideological influences in our
  society and use the Marxist approach to discuss
  their impact upon our thinking.