Andre Maurice S.

Rey AB English 3B

Marxism on Edwin Markham’s “The Man with the Hoe”

Just at the first line of Markham’s poem, it already reveals the Marxist description of the
enslaved workers or the proletariat group, the carrier of the world for centuries. Markham’s
poem reveals his sympathy and revolutionary thinking and spirit for the workers triggered after
gazing Millets’s masterpiece of a worker in the fields. Markham tends to call upon what man or
the working class was supposed to be, especially in the eyes of God and provides prophecies of
what the working classes are able to do to reshape the system, their state and the world.

Markham emphasized the approximation of the society just before the first line of the
poem begins, a phrase taken from the Book of Genesis. This indicates that all were created
equally, that all were created not more or less than the image of God and were created above or
under each other. This verse from the Holy Scriptures gives the poem a foundation as Markham
indicates his questions of criticisms to the present times regarding the inequality to the image of
the worker thinking that all were made equally in God’s image. This also indicates that as all
were created in the same manner, all are expected to prosper and live in equality that no one
should be above or less than one man and that no one must be left behind. Markham’s inspiration
was that of Millet’s famous painting, a man of course with a hoe in the gloomy barren fields with
a face drenched with misery and with a body as if burdened by the world. In looking at the
painting one would see and think that Markham have put into words what he sees in the painting
but his description of the painting is added with the more greater and abstract ideas.

Though it does not directly show its support or rejection to socialism Markham somehow
indicates socialism’s cause and people they aim to uplift and value, the working class. In his
thought raising and stimulating verses and questions, Markham shouts out his criticisms to the
present capitalist society questioning if that is really the fate of numerous men who are bounded
for work. Socialism seeks equality over all men and women, aiming to eradicate all private
institutions that gain most for themselves, Markham shouts at these “masters, lords and rulers in
all lands” warning them that through rebellion, the proletariat or the working class, may cause
their immediate downfall. As Marx in his Communist Manifesto indicates that the proletariat
must and will able to revolt against the capitalist societies. Markham emphasizes the terror of the
revolutionary working classes.

The emphasis on the working class is clearly seen in the poem. The poet even
exaggerates his description of the worker, personifies him/her into intense things or inanimate
objects and throughout the poem raises such questions that concern the inequality and injustice
given to the worker who at the same time is also a human being not different from the others.
From the first line of the poem, Markham describes the worker as the carrier of the world’s
burden for centuries, emptied by the past ages toiling for the all the world, the poet then says that
the worker is numb from any hope and despair and with the ox as a creature below the image and
status of humans, he/she is seemed to be equaled seemingly comparing him with that of an
animal who toils. The speaker or perhaps Markham seems to point straight at the worker as if in
a jury of lords and gods in his defense and stating the threats that he/she may bring. Markham
well sketched the working class, describing them freely with vivid images and extreme abstract
ideas, he made mention of the other side or the bourgeoisie but only as a part to warn them about
the proletariats.

Of course the main conflicting force in Markham’s “The Man with the Hoe” is the
conflict between the proletariat or the workers and the bourgeoisie. The worker is seen and
pictured as the one being oppressed and the private owners as the oppressors. We cannot say that
the proletariat is against the society because they themselves are a society even bigger than the
bourgeoisie. However we can look at it as the private owners or those on the higher state as the
society for they are the ones who control the society, and the proletariat are but only a group who
despite their number are considered the idle ones in the society. In Markham’s poem however in
a literary sense we will see only one individual against the society, a conflict of a man against his
society. “The Man with the Hoe” also represents the conflict between the man and himself, the
worker versus his will to remain in his state or in such time, as the poet seem to suggest and as
Marx have encouraged, to revolt against the oppressive forces, to change his/her own fate, and to
live in what all people tend to believe, in equality.

At the end part of Markham’s piece, he slightly reveals and at the same time show what
the working class can do to eradicate their selves from this injustice. The problem has been the
injustice to the proletariat and the oppressing of the bourgeoisie and Markham warns these
“masters, lords and rulers in all lands” about the great terror the working class will bring to them.
Markham describes the workers as a “monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched” probably
because of the effects of in justice and inequality, and then later they are addressed as “dumb
Terror” Markham seems to show Marx’s major teachings and prophecy that someday the
proletariat will rise up in rebellion against the private owners and capitalists, and as Marx
pointed out, equality will be achieved through the eradication of capitalism.

“The Man with the Hoe” does not completely and directly shows the values of the two
classes, however it may show signs of sympathy for the working class, Markham points out the
relation of the image of God with that of the humans as they were created equally, this may seem
to be the occurring value that Markham points out to the proletariat, they too are also created in
the image of God yet they are treated as an animal “a brother to an ox” from this belief emerges
certain values of search for justice, equality and freedom for the proletariats against the
bourgeoisie who are seemed to be portrayed as alienators of the working class considering
themselves much far from the grounds stood upon by the proletariats.

Markham shows the problem in the first part of the poem, as a problem of the workers or
the working class, individually for the man with the hoe, collectively to all the workers and
laborers. Such problem of injustice, inequality and absence of freedom is a problem addressed
not only to one but to the whole class being deprived of such things in life, however Markham
also indicates a problem for the bourgeoisie, warning them that theses petty men may cause their
downfall at the time they rebel. Of course looking at it in a Marxist perspective, such injustices,
inequalities and discrimination can be solved by what Markham is warning and what Marx is
prophesizing.

Markham criticizes the bourgeoisie society for alienating, burdening, oppressing and
taking over the lives of the working class; the capitalists have made the workers dull and
gloomy, deprived them from the benefit and use of knowledge, wisdom, arts, and recreation, and
has even changed their lives in such ways. “..What to him are the Plato and the swing of
Pleiades? The rift of dawn, the reddening rose?” Markham’s “The Man with the Hoe” is truly an
advocate not only of worker’s justice, equality, and freedom but of all humanity as a whole.