Lecture Two: Marxism Literary Criticism  

Objectives:

By the end of this lecture, students will be able to

Explain the use of Marxist criticism

Evaluate the connection between literary works and economical/social status through the use of Marxist criticism

Determine the reason behind Marxist criticism in literary works.

Objectives

At the end of the lesson student should be able to;

Explain the use of Marxist criticism.

Use Maxist criticism in analyzing literary piece.

Reflect on the real-time social issues using Marxist criticism.

Evaluate the connection between literary works and economical/social status through the use of Marxist

criticism.

Determine the reason behind Marxist criticism in classic and modern literary works

 

Objectives

At the end of the lesson student should be able to;

Explain the use of Marxist criticism.

Use Maxist criticism in analyzing literary piece.

Reflect on the real-time social issues using Marxist criticism.

Evaluate the connection between literary works and economical/social status through the use of Marxist

criticism.

Determine the reason behind Marxist criticism in classic and modern literary works

Defining Marxism: Marxism is the belief that every ill of the world (racism, consumerism, capitalism, sexism, homophobia, feminism, religion, patriotism, terrorism, etc) is due to class berries between the haves and the have nots: the bourgeoisie-those who control the world’s natural, economic and human resources and the proletariat-the majority of the global population who live in substandard conditions and perform the manual labor. The world is in a state of wealthy vs. poverty, survival of the fittest. Marxism is a political and economic theory and philosophy that analyzes the present (why the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich), and predicts when society is headed and it calls for a revolution in order to create a new society. Thus, Marxist criticism analyses literature in terms of the historical conditions which produce it. Without examining the factors that shape the literary work, criticism would be inadequate. The meaning of Marxist criticism is the uncovering of relationships of domination and exploitation, even when they are disguised in idealistic terms.

      Marxism is a scientific theory of human societies and of the practice of transforming them; and what that means, rather more concretely, is that the narrative Marxism has to deliver is the story of the struggles of men and women to free themselves from certain forms of exploitation and oppression. Marxist criticism is part of a larger body of theoretical analysis which aims to understand ideologies – the ideas, values and feelings by which men experience their societies at various times. And certain of those ideas, values and feelings are available to us only in literature. Its aim is to explain the literary work more fully; and this means a sensitive attention to its forms, styles and meanings. But it also means grasping those forms, styles and meanings as the products of a particular history.

1.      Development of Marxism

Ø  G.K. Plehanov –translated “The Communist Manifesto”

Ø  Russia- First country to promote Marxist principles.

Ø  Leon Trotsky-became the founding father of Marxist Literary Criticism as he authored Literature and Revolutions (1925)

Georg Lukacs

v  Lukacs believed that a detailed analysis of symbols, images and other literary devices would expose class conflict and expose the relationship between the superstructure and the base.

v  Reflections: Approach to literary analysis declaring that texts directly reflect a society’s consciousness

v  Emphasizing negative effects of capitalism such as alienation

 

2.      The Frankfurt School

Ø  Neo-Marxist group devoted to developing Western Marxist principles.

Ø  A text reveals a culture’s fragmentation and not its wholeness.

Antonio Gramsci

 

v Said that there is a complex relationship between the base and the superstructure.

v The Bourgeoisie establishes and maintains what he calls hegemony. (Hegemony: leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over other. “Germany was united under Prussian hegemony after 1871- dominance by the people’s consent rather than on a leader’s coercion and exerted force.

v As sustainers of the economic base, the dominant class thus enjoys the prestige of the masses and controls the ideology that shapes individual consciousness.

v Literature actually concerns itself with the bourgeoisie.

 

                                Louis Althusser: Production Theory

 

v     The superstructure can and does influence the base

v     Althusser believes that the prevailing ideology forms the attitudes of people in society through a process he calls interpellation or “hailing the subject”.

v     Althusser contends that ideology has a material existence because “an ideology always exists in an apparatus that is inserted into practices, for example, rituals, conventional behaviors etc.

v     Within this framework, Althusser introduces the concept of interpellation; otherwise known as “hailing”. Ideology “call out” or “hail” people and offer a particular identity, which they accept as “natural” or “obvious”. In this way, the dominant class exerts a power over individuals that are quite different from them.

v     The people’s world view is thus craftily shaped by a complex network of messages sent to them through the elements contained in the superstructure, including the arts. According to Althusser, ideology is a system of representations “governed by rules that serve political ends.” Althusser implies with the concept of interpellation that there is no inherent meaning in the individual.

 

3.     Marxist Theorists Today

Fredric Jameson

v  Believes that the function of literary analysis is to uncover the political unconscious present in the text.

v  He said all critics must be aware of their own ideology when analysis a text and must therefore possess dialectical self-awareness.

Terry Eagleton

v  Believes that literature is neither a product of pure inspiration nor the product of the author’s feelings.

v  Literature is a product of ideology. This ideology is a result of social interactions that occur between people in definite times and locations.

v  The critic’s task is to reconstruct an author’s ideology.

4.     Assumption of Marxism

ü  Marxism is not primarily a literary theory that can be used to interpret a text.

ü  It is a set of social, economic, and political ideas that its followers believe will enable them to interpret and more importantly, change the world.

ü  Marxism is material not spiritual.

ü  All our actions and responses to such activities are related in some way to our cultures.

ü  In order to understand ourselves and our world, we must first acknowledge the interrelatedness of all our actions within the society.

ü  It is our cultural and social circumstances that determine who we are.

(Dialectic: is when two seemingly conflicting things are true at the same time. For example, It is snowing, and it is Spring.

 

Class Struggle

 

 

 

Marxism

 

Bourgeoisie Vs. Proletariats

 

Ideology expressed by author

5.    Marxism Methodology

ü  Concerns for the working classes and the individual.

ü  Recognizing the interrelatedness of all human activities.

ü  Deals with more than the conventional literary themes, subject matters of style, plot, characterization and the usual emphasis on figures of speech and literary devices.

6.    Concerns of Marxism

a.       Author’s life

b.      Time/period in which the text was written.

c.       Cultural milieu

d.      Ideology expressed by the author.

   Ideology

§  Expressed by the author, as evidenced through his/her fictional world, and how this ideology interacts with the reader’s personal ideology.

§  Expose class conflict with the dominant class and its ideology being imposed

§  The task of the critic is to uncover the ideology and show how such destructive ideology entraps the working classes and oppresses them in every area of their lives.

§  A critic may begin by showing how an author’s text reflects his or her ideology through an examination the fictional world’s character, setting, society, or any other aspect of text.

§  It could also be by examining the history and the culture of the times reflected in the text.

   Questions for Analysis

a.       Is there an outright rejection of socialism in the work?

b.      Does the text raise fundamental criticism about the emptiness of life in bourgeois society?

c.       In portraying society, what approximation of totality does the author achieve? What is emphasized?

d.      What are the work’s conflicting forces?

e.       How does the work reflect the social/historical conditions?

f.       Where does the text show class conflict as the source of struggle and tension?

g.      Does the work enforce or showcase capitalist or classist values and power structures?

h.      In what ways does the work seem to support a Marxist agenda, but also exhibit a false consciousness that returns to the status quo instead? Where does the work contradict or deconstruct itself?

7.    Two Economic Means of Production within a Society

a.       Base: engenders and controls all human institutions and ideologies: Economic base or infrastructure: Forces or relations of productions

b.      Superstructure: All social and legal institutions, political and educational systems, religions, and art.

From this economic base, in every period, emerges a “superstructure”—certain forms of law and politics, certain kind of state, whose essential function is to legitimate the power of the social class which owns the means of economic production. But the superstructure contains more than this: it also consists of certain “definite forms of social consciousness” (political, religious, ethical, aesthetic and so on), which is what Marxism designates as ideology. The function of ideology, also is to legitimate the power of the ruling class in society.

 

Summary:

Marxist approach relates literary text to society, to the history and cultural and political systems in which it is created. It does not consider a literary text, devoid of its writer and the influence on the writer. A writer is a product of his own age which is itself a product of many ages.

It is opposed to idealist philosophy which conceptualizes a spiritual world elsewhere that influences and controls the material world.

Society progresses through the struggle between opposing forces. It is this struggle between opposing classes that result in social triumph. During the feudal period the tension was between the feudal lords Vs. the Peasants.

Industrial Age=Capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) Vs; the industrial working class (the Proletariat).

Classes have common interest. This confrontation will finally result in replacing the system by socialism.

Another important concept used by Marx was the dialectic which was originally developed by the 18the century German philosopher Hegel. Hegel was an idealist philosopher who used this term to refer to the process of emergence of new ideas through confrontation of opposing ideas.

The world is governed by thought and material existence is the expression of an immaterial spiritual essence.

Marx used the same concept by receiving/and giving primacy to the material world over ideas to interpret the material world i.e. Dialectical Materialism.

Marx considers the universe as an integral whole in which things are interdependent, rather than a mixture of things isolated from each other.

 

All social and legal institutions

 

 

It legitimates

 the power of

of the social

Superstructure Education,                       family,                                    religion,                                                 mass media art

Base Relations of Production Bourgeoisie exploits the proletariat. Means of Production The things you need to produce machines, factories, land, materials (owned by bourgeoisie)

class which owns the means of economic production

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    One of the fundamental concepts of Marxist thought is the concept of base and superstructure which refers to the relationship between the material means of production and the cultural world of art and ideas.

   The foundation or the base stands for the socio-economic relations and the mode of production and the superstructure stands for art, law, politics, religion and above all ideology. The function of ideology, also is to legitimate the power of the ruling class in society.

Morality, religion, art and philosophy are seen as echoes of real life processes. In Marx’s own words, they are “phantoms formed in the brains of men” From this point of view all cultural products are directly related to the economic base in a given society.

 

Task 1: Write a Marxist criticism on a short story: Sample

Bad Little Boy

Good Little Boy by Mark Twain Hills Like White Elephants by Hemingway.   

References

Eagleton, Terry. (1976). Marxism and Literary Criticism. LONDON, Taylor & Francis:  Routledge.

Haslett, Moyra. (2000). Marxist Literary Theory and Cultural Theories. New York; St. Martin’s Press Hamadi, L. (2017). The Concept of Ideology in Marxist Literary Criticism. European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 13(20), 154. https://doi.org/10.19044/esj.2017.v13n20p154  Pollock, F. (2020). State capitalism: its possibilities and limitations. Critical theory and society a reader. London: Routledge Pope, Rob. (1998). Studying English Literature and Language: An Introduction and Companion. New York, Routledge Rapaport, Herman. (2011). The Literary Theory Toolkit A Compendium of Concepts and Methods. Wiley Blackwell, Ltd.

Rizal’s ideology about revolution would later spark an uprising led by Andres Bonifacio. Though

Rizal never approved the idea of a revolt as a primary action to independence, it was shown in

Ibarra’s character that he might do the same if the need arises. Rizal still believed through Ibarra

that the Spaniards would reconsider their actions and treat Filipinos fairly, and if Spain wouldn’t

do so, he called for revolt as an outright solution.

Noli me Tangere was just a beginning of Rizal’s exposition and call for reform in the Spanish rule.

El Filibusterismo, his next, would show how an untimely revolution could be dangerous. Noli’s

Ibarra was still somewhat confused of how he’ll be able to tolerate the tyranny shown by the

Spaniards especially the friars. He changed a lot in Fili. And in a Marxist point of view, the change

is typical to those who were oppressed by capitalists and authorities who have no other thought

but to gain more power and dominion all over the land it colonised.

Another example of using Marxist criticism in movie

Disney Movie Cinderella

Marx ideologies can help us to analyse this movie, the story behind this film was a portrait of

socio-cultural reference at that time, the aristocrat system that led the country or kingdom, and

how the society see what is the meaning of life. These points were interesting to analyse,

because this film depicted the social ideology and views at that time. It is most likely that this

film had a strong implication of Marx 3 ideology towards the society, how the class struggle

between people to change their current state, how people are being classed, and how the false

consciousness works. In this essay the writer would analyse those aspects and how the movie

depicted Marx ideologies. It was a Disney animated film and one of the most recognizable film of

all time. Many generations have seen this film and with Marxist criticism towards the movie we

can understand more about the movie, it made Cinderella more than just a fairy tale. I hope that

we could appreciate and see what lies beneath the story of this phenomenal fairy tal