Marxist Criticism

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Marxist Criticism
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• Georg Hegel (1770-1831) The human mind begins
  with a thesis (say, past tense in English is
  -ed) that may produce an antithesis (a
  disproof, such as went) and, thus, lead to a
  synthesisa new understanding (some verbs are
  irregular). This synthesis then becomes a thesis
  itself, which may find a new antithesis, leading
  to a new synthesis, and so on. The end result of
  this process is absolute knowledge. This process
  can be said to be dialectical.

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• Karl Marx (1818-83) Philosophers have only
  interpreted the world, in various ways the
  point, however, is to change it.
• Marx took Hegel's idealistic dialectic and made
  it material dialectical materialism. He thought
  that class struggle was the real history of
  consciousness in progress.

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• History is the history of class struggle Freeman
  and slave patrician and plebeian lord and serf
  etc. Capitalism's opponents are the bourgeoisie
  and the proletariat private ownership of the
  means of production vs. the workers who sell
  their labor to this capitalist system of
  production. The end result of this process is
  either a revolutionary reconstitution of society,
  or the common ruin of the contending classes.

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• Society consists of an economic base, or
  infrastructure, and a superstructure. The
  superstructure comprises everything cultural
  (religion, politics, law, art, education, etc.).
  This superstructure is determined by its
  infrastructure (slave-based, feudal, capitalist,
  etc.).

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Colorado (getintravel.com)
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North Korea, 2011 c. David Guttenfelder
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• How does capitalism reproduce and maintain
  itself?
• consumerism
• surplus value (production succeeds in exploiting
  more labor time than is actually paid for)
• the infra- and superstructures (above)

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• The dominant culture owns the means of
  production therefore, its ideas and values are
  accepted.

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• Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) Why do the
  exploited classes of capitalist society go along
  with the ruling ideology when it is not in their
  best interest to do so?
• founding member of Communist Party in Italy,
  imprisoned by Mussolini

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Antonio Gramsci

• Theory of hegemonyto persuade the whole of
  society that a prevailing ideologythe very one
  that protects the dominant classis really the
  only natural and normal way of thinking
• put another waythe pervasive, weblike system of
  assumptions and values that shape the way things
  look, what they mean, indeed what reality is for
  the majority of people in a culture

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• Literary criticism not just aesthetic but
  political
• Art should be an instrument of political action
• What does art tell us about a society (or, to
  reduce the question, its economic
  infrastructure)? Does it reinforce or run counter
  to the prevailing ideology (the network of
  conventions, values, and opinions to which the
  majority of people uncritically subscribe)?

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• The Marxist critic looks at class systems
  reflected in texts
• Looks for commodification (turning people,
  things, services, art into an economic good) and
  exploitation
• Looks at a literary work as a material product to
  be understood in broadly historical terms
• A literary work is first a product of workissues
  of production/consumption

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• Asks, Is economics the motivation for the
  characters' actions? Is the socialist theme more
  important than the text as a piece of art?
• There are a wide variety of Marxist critics, with
  discrepancies in their viewpoints.

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