The Social Classes of The Necklace

The 19th century France was a setting for the conservative practice of social caste which was based primarily on socio-economic
factors. That is why in Guy de Maupassant’s short story, the Necklace, a troubled middle class, Madame Mathilde is painted as a woman
who would later on become to have economic struggles because of a lost necklace and shall represent the uneventful circumstances
women and people of her class goes through . Because of her want to look rich, she finds a way to snag a good-looking gown and
borrowed a necklace from her upper-class friend and ends up losing the necklace at the end of the night. This incident then leads her and
her husband to sell everything that they have just so they can repay the lost jewel. But, at the end of the story, she finds out that the
accessory was a faux and was worth less than what they had replaced it for. This then indicates that the story is marked with different
themes of social class and moral behaviours.
In the story, a depiction of the social classes evident in the time of the French Revolution was present. First, it mentions two of
the major classes, the Politariet and the Bourgeoisie. The proletariat, the working class, is one Mathilde and her husband belongs to.
Those of clerks also belong to this distinction. In fact, women of this class “has no dowry, no expectations, no means of becoming known,
understood, loved or wedded by a man of wealth and distinction;” and so most of the time, women like her let themselves be married to
a minor official at the Ministry of Education. Although, Mathilde eats daily, is able to dress decently, plainly to add, she still longs for the
life of painted tapestries and silverware, the life of an upper-class man. The bourgeoisie are the families with money and is where Madame
Forestier is associated with. They are the ones who host social gatherings, events, live in castles, and are regarded highly. For one to
belong in such class, they either have to be born a bourgeoisie or marry one. Unfortunately, because Mathilde is a woman, she does not
have the luxury of becoming one because she is unable and not allowed to get a job for herself. Women at her time were either at home
or organizing social events. And so because of this, a division seemed like everything for Mathilde. The first few paragraphs also show
how Mathilde longed for the opportunity to be a part of the upper class which leads to the motivation for her to look and dress like an
upper class thus guiding her to borrow the necklace which would cause them great distress and misfortune. It is in that manner that
Mathilde is too soon reminded of the class she belongs in. This then reminds the readers of the clear division of people amongst their
society brought about by their economic capacity.
While it is known that the economic status determines the class one belongs in, it also determines the courtesy one address to
another. In fact, in the story, after Mathilde greeted Madame Forestier a good morning, the latter was “astonished to be addressed so
familiarly by this common woman who she did not recognize”. This indicates that there is a greeting to be done once lower classmen talk
to upper classmen with the exception of the sense of familiarity. The invitation from the Ministry of Education is also a form of courtesy
which happens amongst the classes. An invitation is a requirement amongst parties most especially of the upper class. That is why
another thought to consider is that social occasions amongst the bourgeoisie were often exclusive that is why not everyone could attend
unless given with an invitation. With that being said, it may have been the reason why Mathilde was happy upon receiving the news of
an invitation to a party. This then brings the idea that because of the constant reminder of the social class, women, in particular like that
of Mathilde, would like to believe that being a part of the elites would bring them happiness. In fact, right when they were going home
after the party with her husband, she “sadly walked up the steps to their apartment” and knew that “It was all over, for her.”. This
indicates of the circumstance women have to undergo when part of the lower class.
In addition, given Mathilde’s financial status, she is obsessed and fantasizes on what she believes she should have such as
elegant dresses, expensive jewelry, luxurious rooms and other high-class assets. The time where Mathilde and her husband received an
invitation to a party, Mathilde was anxious and tried to fit in the upper class. They spent a lot of money on their dresses and jewelries. In
that moment where Mathilde got everything she wanted; she was already inside an illusion in which she is she is rich. An illusion is to
look or seem different from what it is as to escape the real truth in order to satisfy one’s desires.
The necklace Mathilde borrowed made her feel as if she is part of the rich class. That piece of expensive jewelry showed social
structure and class, how the rich people works but so did her actions, thoughts, and how she carried herself at the ball. When it was time
for the ball, Marxism is evident in the way Mathilde carries herself. The story says “she danced with delight, with passion, intoxicated
with pleasure, thinking of nothing, in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness made up of
all these tributes, of all the admirations, of all these awakened desires, of this victory so complete and so sweet a woman’s heart” the
event itself was the taste and peak into the life of the upper class division. In the mind of Mathilde, the rich life was a big ball or party in
a sense, made her believe this is what it is like. Despite the borrowed expensive and beautiful jewelry that Mathilda has, she was
consumed by her temporary satisfaction thinking that she existed within the higher-class division of the society thus believing in an
extraordinary lie. It was real, for that small amount of time she could be who she had always wanted to be but the next day she was still
married to a clerk man.
Manipulation is about getting the things you want from those who either can or cannot give you what you seek, and it is a
technique the bourgeoisie use to gain and keep control of their power. In the story Manipulation was something that was used by
Mathilde to force her husband to do things that she wants, buy things that she wants knowing that the husband cannot afford the things
what Mathilde desires. She manipulated the feelings of the husband by pointing out that she doesn’t have anything to wear to the event,
that she doesn’t have the jewelry to show off, and that she cannot possibly go without these things. This in turn made the husband give
up his money that he had been saving for himself and their life saving so that Mathilde could have all that she wanted and to repay her
debt of losing the necklace. Losing the necklace and being indebted to someone caused Mathilde to no longer manipulate or hold the
power in their relationship because that power now belonged to the bourgeoisie with whom they were indebted.
While Madame Loisel and her husband only had potpie for their meals the story revealed how glamorous and elegant the parties
and lives of the bourgeoisie were. Being born in the lower strata, the couple already was relegated by the society that is why we see how
her husband was content with his life because society has already embedded in his mind that they are to stay in a powerless situation
with no way to ever achieve the elegant lifestyle that Madame Loisel desires. Here it is clearly depicted how the means of production
structure the society. The way in which society provides and consumes food, uses clothing, distributes the properties and other such
necessities creates among groups of people the poor and the rich. We see how the rich are able to control the means of production and
given this, it also means that they have great power to manipulate politics, government, education, the arts and entertainment, news
media and the society as a whole to ensure that they will maintain their position and their riches. The unequal distribution of goods
leaves that of the lower strata at a disadvantage because the dominant class controls the superstructure enabling them to control the
members of the working classes.
In conclusion, the story emphasizes on how people were divided on the basis of economic capacity during the French
Revolution. And so, it not only portrays how society gets divided into two different classes on the basis of the means of production, such
as the upper and lower class, but also shares how the bourgeoisie determines what is acceptable behavior in a society, because they are
most often at the seat of power. This then leads the poor in having no choice but to blindly follow the rules determined by the
economically privileged class. The life of Madame Mathilde Loisel is a clear example of such.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
The Necklace
She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of destiny, born in a family of clerks. She had no
dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded, by any rich and distinguished man; and she let herself
be married to a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction.
She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper station;
since with women there is neither caste nor rank; and beauty, grace, and charm act instead of family and birth. Natural fineness, instinct
for what is elegant, suppleness of wit, are the sole hierarchy, and make from women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies.
She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries. She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from
the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of
her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her
humble housework aroused in her regrets which were despairing, and distracted dreams. She thought of the silent antechambers hung
with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made
drowsy by the heavy warmth of the hot-air stove. She
thought of the long salons fatted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed
boudoirs made for talks at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose
attention they all desire.
When she sat down to dinner, before the round table covered with a tablecloth three days old, opposite her husband, who uncovered the
soup tureen and declared with an enchanted air, "Ah, the good pot-au-feu! I don't know anything better than that," she thought of dainty
dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry which peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange birds flying in the midst of
a fairy forest; and she thought of delicious dishes served on marvelous plates, and of the whispered gallantries which you listen to with
a sphinx-like smile, while you are eating the pink flesh of a trout or the wings of a quail.
She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that; she felt made for that. She would so have liked to please, to be
envied, to be charming, to be sought after.
She had a friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she did not like to go and see any more, because she
suffered so much when she came back.
But, one evening, her husband returned home with a triumphant air, and holding a large envelope in his hand.
"There," said he, "here is something for you."
She tore the paper sharply, and drew out a printed card which bore these words:
"The Minister of Public Instruction and Mme. Georges Ramponneau request the honor of M. and Mme. Loisel's company at the palace of
the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th."
Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she threw the invitation on the table with disdain, murmuring:
"What do you want me to do with that?"
"But, my dear, I thought you would be glad. You never go out, and this is such a fine opportunity. I had awful trouble to get it. Everyone
wants to go; it is very select, and they are not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole official world will be there."
She looked at him with an irritated eye, and she said, impatiently:
"And what do you want me to put on my back?"
He had not thought of that; he stammered:
"Why, the dress you go to the theater in. It looks very well, to me."
He stopped, distracted, seeing that his wife was crying. Two great tears descended slowly from the corners of her eyes toward the corners
of her mouth. He stuttered:
"What's the matter? What's the matter?"
But, by a violent effort, she had conquered her grief, and she replied, with a calm voice, while she wiped her wet cheeks:
"Nothing. Only I have no dress, and therefore I can't go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than
I."
He was in despair. He resumed:
"Come, let us see, Mathilde. How much would it cost, a suitable dress, which you could use on other occasions, something very simple?"
She reflected several seconds, making her calculations and wondering also what sum she could ask without drawing on herself an
immediate refusal and a frightened exclamation from the economical clerk.
Finally, she replied, hesitatingly:
"I don't know exactly, but I think I could manage it with four hundred francs."
He had grown a little pale, because he was laying aside just that amount to buy a gun and treat himself to a little shooting next summer
on the plain of Nanterre, with several friends who went to shoot larks down there of a Sunday.
But he said:
"All right. I will give you four hundred francs. And try to have a pretty dress."
The day of the ball drew near, and Mme. Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Her dress was ready, however. Her husband said to her
one evening:
"What is the matter? Come, you've been so queer these last three days."
And she answered:
"It annoys me not to have a single jewel, not a single stone, nothing to put on. I shall look like distress. I should almost rather not go at
all."
He resumed:
"You might wear natural flowers. It's very stylish at this time of the year. For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses."
She was not convinced.
"No; there's nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich."
But her husband cried:
"How stupid you are! Go look up your friend Mme. Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels. You're quite thick enough with her
to do that."
She uttered a cry of joy:
"It's true. I never thought of it."
The next day she went to her friend and told of her distress.
Mme. Forestier went to a wardrobe with a glass door, took out a large jewel box, brought it back, opened it, and said to Mme. Loisel:
"Choose, my dear."
She saw first of all some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross, gold and precious stones of admirable workmanship. She
tried on the ornaments before the glass, hesitated, could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them back. She kept asking:
"Haven't you any more?"
"Why, yes. Look. I don't know what you like."
All of a sudden she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb necklace of diamonds, and her heart began to beat with an immoderate
desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it around her throat, outside her high-necked dress, and remained lost in ecstasy
at the sight of herself.
Then she asked, hesitating, filled with anguish:
"Can you lend me that, only that?"
"Why, yes, certainly."
She sprang upon the neck of her friend, kissed her passionately, then fled with her treasure.
The day of the ball arrived. Mme. Loisel made a great success. She was prettier than them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and crazy with
joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, endeavored to be introduced. All the attachés of the Cabinet
wanted to waltz with her. She was remarked by the minister himself.
She danced with intoxication, with passion, made drunk by pleasure, forgetting all, in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her
success, in a sort of cloud of happiness composed of all this homage, of all this admiration, of all these awakened desires, and of that
sense of complete victory which is so sweet to woman's heart.
She went away about four o'clock in the morning. Her husband had been sleeping since midnight, in a little deserted anteroom, with
three other gentlemen whose wives were having a very good time.
He threw over her shoulders the wraps which he had brought, modest wraps of common life, whose poverty contrasted with the elegance
of the ball dress. She felt this and wanted to escape so as not to be remarked by the other women, who were enveloping themselves in
costly furs.
Loisel held her back.
"Wait a bit. You will catch cold outside. I will go and call a cab."
But she did not listen to him, and rapidly descended the stairs. When they were in the street, they did not find a carriage; and they began
to look for one, shouting after the cabmen whom they saw passing by at a distance.
They went down toward the Seine, in despair, shivering with cold. At last they found on the quay one of those ancient
noctambulent coupés which, exactly as if they were ashamed to show their misery during the day, are never seen round Paris until after
nightfall.
It took them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and once more, sadly, they climbed up homeward. All was ended for her. And as to
him, he reflected that he must be at the Ministry at ten o'clock.
She removed the wraps, which covered her shoulders, before the glass, so as once more to see herself in all her glory. But suddenly she
uttered a cry. She had no longer the necklace around her neck!
Her husband, already half undressed, demanded:
"What is the matter with you?"
She turned madly toward him:
"I have—I have—I've lost Mme. Forestier's necklace."
He stood up, distracted.
"What!—how?—Impossible!"
And they looked in the folds of her dress, in the folds of her cloak, in her pockets, everywhere. They did not find it.
He asked:
"You're sure you had it on when you left the ball?"
"Yes, I felt it in the vestibule of the palace."
"But if you had lost it in the street we should have heard it fall. It must be in the cab."
"Yes. Probably. Did you take his number?"
"No. And you, didn't you notice it?"
"No."
They looked, thunderstruck, at one another. At last Loisel put on his clothes.
"I shall go back on foot," said he, "over the whole route which we have taken, to see if I can't find it."
And he went out. She sat waiting on a chair in her ball dress, without strength to go to bed, overwhelmed, without fire, without a thought.
Her husband came back about seven o'clock. He had found nothing.
He went to Police Headquarters, to the newspaper offices, to offer a reward; he went to the cab companies—everywhere, in fact, whither
he was urged by the least suspicion of hope.
She waited all day, in the same condition of mad fear before this terrible calamity.
Loisel returned at night with a hollow, pale face; he had discovered nothing.
"You must write to your friend," said he, "that you have broken the clasp of her necklace and that you are having it mended. That will
give us time to turn round."
She wrote at his dictation.
At the end of a week they had lost all hope.
And Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:
"We must consider how to replace that ornament."
The next day they took the box which had contained it, and they went to the jeweler whose name was found within. He consulted his
books.
"It was not I, madame, who sold that necklace; I must simply have furnished the case."
Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, searching for a necklace like the other, consulting their memories, sick both of them with chagrin
and with anguish.
They found, in a shop at the Palais Royal, a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like the one they looked for. It was worth
forty thousand francs. They could have it for thirty-six.
So they begged the jeweler not to sell it for three days yet. And they made a bargain that he should buy it back for thirty-four thousand
francs in case they found the other one before the end of February.
Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He would borrow the rest.
He did borrow, asking a thousand francs of one, five hundred of another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, took up ruinous
obligations, dealt with usurers, and all the race of lenders. He compromised all the rest of his life, risked his signature without even
knowing if he could meet it; and, frightened by the pains yet to come, by the black misery which was about to fall upon him, by the
prospect of all the physical privations and of all the moral tortures which he was to suffer, he went to get the new necklace, putting down
upon the merchant's counter thirty-six thousand francs.
When Mme. Loisel took back the necklace, Mme. Forestier said to her, with a chilly manner:
"You should have returned it sooner, I might have needed it."
She did not open the case, as her friend had so much feared. If she had detected the substitution, what would she have thought, what
would she have said? Would she not have taken Mme. Loisel for a thief?
Mme. Loisel now knew the horrible existence of the needy. She took her part, moreover, all on a sudden, with heroism. That dreadful
debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their servant; they changed their lodgings; they rented a garret under the roof.
She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious cares of the kitchen. She washed the dishes, using her rosy nails on the
greasy pots and pans. She washed the dirty linen, the
shirts, and the dish-cloths, which she dried upon a line; she carried the slops down to the street every morning, and carried up the water,
stopping for breath at every landing. And, dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, her
basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, defending her miserable money sou by sou.
Each month they had to meet some notes, renew others, obtain more time.
Her husband worked in the evening making a fair copy of some tradesman's accounts, and late at night he often copied manuscript for
five sous a page.
And this life lasted ten years.
At the end of ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the rates of usury, and the accumulations of the compound interest.
Mme. Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished households—strong and hard and rough. With frowsy hair,
skirts askew, and red hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was
at the office, she sat down near the window, and she thought of that gay evening of long ago, of that ball where she had been so beautiful
and so feted.
What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? who knows? How life is strange and changeful! How little a
thing is needed for us to be lost or to be saved!
But, one Sunday, having gone to take a walk in the Champs Élysées to refresh herself from the labors of the week, she suddenly perceived
a woman who was leading a child. It was Mme. Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming.
Mme. Loisel felt moved. Was she going to speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she was going to tell her all about it.
Why not?
She went up.
"Good day, Jeanne."
The other, astonished to be familiarly addressed by this plain good-wife, did not recognize her at all, and stammered:
"But—madame!—I do not know—You must have mistaken."
"No. I am Mathilde Loisel."
Her friend uttered a cry.
"Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed!"
"Yes, I have had days hard enough, since I have seen you, days wretched enough—and that because of you!"
"Of me! How so?"
"Do you remember that diamond necklace which you lent me to wear at the ministerial ball?"
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, I lost it."
"What do you mean? You brought it back."
"I brought you back another just like it. And for this we have been ten years paying. You can understand that it was not easy for us, us
who had nothing. At last it is ended, and I am very glad."
Mme. Forestier had stopped.
"You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?"
"Yes. You never noticed it, then! They were very like."
And she smiled with a joy which was proud and naïve at once.
Mme. Forestier, strongly moved, took her two hands.
"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs!"
CHAPTER 8
IDEOLOGY AND DISCOURSE
The title ‘Ideology and Discourse’ refers to the ideas that link the three main theories and theorists this chapter addresses. Louis Althusser,
Mikhail Bakhtin, and Michel Foucault are all are discussing how ideology works, and how ideologies construct subjects. All of these
theorists are coming from a Marxist perspective, using ideas and terms developed in Marxist theory. So, to start off, I want to talk a bit
about some of the fundamental premises of Marxist theory.
MARXIST THEORY: A FEW BASICS
Marxism is a set of theories, or a system of thought and analysis, developed by Karl Marx in the nineteenth century in response to the
Western industrial revolution and the rise of industrial capitalism as the predominant economic mode. Like feminist theory and queer
theory, Marxist theory is directed at social change; Marxists want to analyze social relations in order to change them, in order to alter
what they see are the gross injustices and inequalities created by capitalist economic relations. My capsule summary of the main ideas of
Marxism, however, will focus on the theoretical aspects more than on how that theory has been and is applicable to projects for social
change.
Marxist theory is fundamentally a historical materialist view of the world; it combines elements of philosophy, history, and
economic theory to assert the premise that our world and our history are products of how human beings use tools to create the material
culture we live in. All social organizations and forces, and all social change or ‘history,’ is determined ultimately by the work that people
do with their tools. These tools are often referred to as ‘instruments of production,’ or as ‘forces of production.’ Historical materialism
also says that people and the tools they use always exist in some sort of social relations, because people live in social groups, not in
isolation, and they always organize their social groups in some way, such as having a form of ‘government.’ What every social group
organizes, according to the historical materialist perspective, is how people work with their tools, or, in other words, how human labor,
and forces of production, operate. The organizations that shape how people use the forces of production are called the ‘relations of
production.’ The relations of production, how people relate to each other, and to their society as a whole, through their productive
activity, and the forces of production together form what historical materialism calls a mode of production.
As an economic theory, Marxism looks specifically at the capitalist economic system, based on an analysis of how the forces and
relations of production work within the capitalist mode of production. In a factory, for instance, a worker performs labor on raw materials,
and thus transforms those raw materials into an object; in the process, the laborer adds something to the raw materials so that the object
(raw material _ labor) is worth more than
the original raw material. What the laborer adds is called ‘surplus value,’ in Marxist theory. While the laborer is paid for the work he or
she does, that payment is figured in terms of ‘reproduction,’ of what the laborer will need in order to come back the next day (i.e. food,
rest, shelter, clothes, etc.), and not in terms of what value the laborer added to the raw material. The goal of capitalist production is to sell
the object made, with its surplus value, for more than the cost of the raw materials and the reproduction of the laborer. This excess in
value (in price) comes from the surplus value added by the laborer, but it is ‘owned’ by the capitalist; the factory owner gets the profit
from selling the object, and the laborer gets only the cost of his ‘reproduction’ in the wages he earns.
From these economic relations comes a crucially important concept in Marxist thought: the idea of alienation. There are two
aspects to the Marxist idea of alienation. The first is that labor which produces surplus value is alienated labor. The labor put into an
object becomes part of the capitalist’s profit, and thus no longer belongs to the laborer. In addition to alienating the laborer from his labor
power, capitalism also forces the worker to become alienated from himself. When a worker has to sell his labor power, he becomes a
commodity, something to be sold in the marketplace like a thing; the worker who is a commodity is thus not fully human, in the
philosophical sense, since he cannot exercise free will to determine his actions. The worker who is forced to exist as a commodity in the
labor market is alienated from his humanness; in selling one’s labor, that labor becomes alienated, something separate from or other than
the laborer, something divided from the person that produces it. The double alienation of the proletariat, and their exploitation by the
capitalists, form the basic contradictions of capitalism which produce the dialectic (the struggle between workers and owners, labor and
capital) which produces social change, or history, and which will eventually, according to Marxist theory, synthesize into socialism.
From Marx’s economic doctrines comes an analysis of how the capitalist system specifically functions; from historical
materialism comes a model of how social organizations are structured, which is relevant to all cultures, whether capitalist or not.
According to the Marxist view of culture, the modes of production are the primary determining factor in all social relations: everything
that happens in a society is in some way related to, and determined by, the mode of production or economic base.
The economic base in any society generates other social formations, called the superstructure. The superstructure consists of all
other kinds of social activities or systems, including politics, religion, philosophy, morality, art, and science. All of these aspects of a
society are, in Marxist theory, shaped, formed, or created by the economic base. Thus a central question for a lot of Marxist theory is how
the economic base determines superstructure. How, for instance, does the feudal mode of production produce or determine the religious
beliefs and practices current during the medieval period?
Another way of asking this question is to look at the relations between economic base and a particular aspect of superstructure,
which Marxists name ideology. Ideology, or ideologies, are the ideas that exist in a culture; there will typically be one or several kinds of
religious ideologies, for example, and political ideologies, and aesthetic ideologies, which will articulate what, and how, people can think
about religion, politics, and art, respectively. Ideology is how a society thinks about itself, the forms of social consciousness that exist at
any particular moment; ideologies supply all the terms and assumptions and frameworks that individuals use to understand their culture,
and ideologies supply all the things that people believe in, and then act on.
For Marx, ideology, as part of the superstructure generated by an economic base, works to justify that base; the ideologies
present in a capitalist society will explain, justify, and support the capitalist mode of production. In nineteenth-century southern US
culture, for example, the economic base was slave labor, and all of the superstructures, such as organized religion, local and national
politics, and art (especially literature), worked to uphold slavery as a good economic system. Literature, then, is part of any culture’s
superstructure, from this perspective, and is determined, in both form and content, by the economic base.
Literature also participates in the articulation of forms of cultural ideology – novels and poems might justify or attack religious
beliefs, political beliefs, or aesthetic ideas. Marxist literary critics and theorists are interested in asking a range of questions about how
literature functions as a site for ideology, as part of the superstructure. First, they want to examine how the economic base of any culture,
and particularly of capitalist cultures, influences or determines the form and/or content of literature, both in general terms and in specific
works of literature. They also want to look at how literature functions in relation to other aspects of the superstructure, particularly other
articulations of ideology. Does literature reflect the economic base? If so, how? Does literature reflect other ideologies? If so, how? Do
literary works create their own ideologies? If so, how are these ideologies related back to the economic base? And, finally, Marxist critics,
like feminist critics, want to investigate how literature can work as a force for social change, or as a reaffirmation or ‘reification’ of existing
conditions. Is literature part of the dialectical struggle that will end capitalism and bring about socialism, or is literature part of the
bourgeois justification of capitalism?

According to Frederich Engels, ideology functions as an illusion; ideologies give people ideas about how to understand
themselves and their lives, and these ideas disguise or mask what’s really going on. In Engels’s explanation, ideologies signify the way
people live out their lives in class society, giving people the terms for the values, ideas, and images that tie them to their social functions,
and thus prevent them from a true understanding of the real forces and relations of production. Ideology is thus an illusion which masks
the real/objective situation; an example of this would be an ideology that tells you, as a worker, that the capitalists are really working in
your interest, which disguises or hides the ‘objective’ reality that the capitalists’ interests are opposed to the workers’ interests. Engels
says that the illusions created by ideology create false consciousness in people, who believe the ideological representations of how the
world works and thus misperceive, or don’t see at all, how the world objectively works in terms of the mode of production and the class
divisions that mode of production creates. Workers, for Engels, are deluded by various kinds of ideology into thinking they’re not
exploited by the capitalist system, instead of seeing how they are.
In this view, literature is also a kind of illusion, a kind of ideology that prevents people from seeing the real relations of
production at work. The earliest Marxist literary critics argued that a work of literature was entirely determined by the mode of
production, by the economic base of the culture which produced it. This view, however, couldn’t account for how or why literature might
be able to challenge the ideological assumptions of a society; in this view, literature could only uphold the dominant cultural organization
that produced it, rather than being a force for opposition or change.
Subsequent Marxist critics have argued that literature does something more complicated than simply ‘reflecting’ the values that
support capitalism. According to Pierre Macheray, literature doesn’t reflect either the economic base or other ideology, but rather it works
on existing ideologies and transforms them, giving these ideologies new shape and structure; literature in Macheray’s view is distinct
from, and distant from, other forms of ideology and can provide insights into how ideologies are structured, and what their limits are.
This view is also followed by Georg Lukacs, who argues that Marxist literary criticism should look at a work of literature in terms of the
ideological structure(s) of which it is a part, but which it transforms in its art.
For other Marxists, including Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, and Louis Althusser, literature works the way any ideology does,
by signifying the imaginary ways in which people perceive the real world; literature uses language to signify what it feels like to live in
particular conditions, rather than using language to give a rational analysis of those conditions. Thus literature helps to create experience,
not just reflect it. As a kind of ideology, literature for these critics is relatively autonomous, both of other ideological forms and of the
economic base.
The Friday Everything Changed
The Friday Everything Changed written by Anne Hart, presents a school for elementary school aged children which depicts
previously known stereotypes of men and women in a way that it is not only easy to understand, but also very forthright in its depiction.
The stereotype that is being depicted is that males are physically strong, whereas women are too weak and feeble to perform physically
demanding tasks. Stereotypes such as this one have been ingrained into societies around the world causing division among men and
women and depicting women as second class citizens, even though these stereotypes have no basis in fact. Anti-women stereotypes have
been fought against and been sought to be disproven by feminists in their pursuit of equality ever since the birth of the Feminist
movement. The same feminist movement that began in the 18th century is the same movement that created Feminist Theory, a theory
which seeks to call to light gender inequality stereotypes and also seeks to disprove them. The short story The Friday Everything Changed
portrays these stereotypes in a simple fashion for our own understanding of how damaging they can be. With the inclusion of Feminist
Theory these stereotypes can be understood as something not based in fact but based in tradition and myth.
Gender stereotypes are “preconceived ideas whereby females and males are arbitrarily assigned characteristics and roles
determined and limited by their gender” (“Gender Stereotypes”, n.d.). According to the European Institute for Gender Inequality gender
stereotyping has the potential to limit natural talents and abilities of developing girls and boys, women and men, and even their
educational and professional experiences and future opportunities as well. These stereotypes or any stereotype in general can be argued
that they are used and justified to maintain historical relations of power of one group over the other and to hold back the advancement
of the down casted group. In the short story The Friday Everything Changed, gender stereotypes are based and justified to maintain a power
structure and harm both the males and females in the story. These gender inequality stereotypes are harmful and sought by Feminism
with Feminist Theory to be eradicated.
The Friday Everything Changed by Anne Hart presents an elementary school which is deeply rooted in gender inequality
stereotypes, and once confronted with them has a difficult time of relieving these stereotypes as fact. In the short story the boys are
continually chosen to be the ones who carry the water bucket, whereas the girls are never chosen. The importance of being chosen to
carry the water bucket is less based in responsibility but more because of the feeling that comes with when you are chosen. For the boys
when you are chosen “[it] meant you were one of the big guys, and carrying the water meant you could get away from school for maybe
half an hour at a time. But mostly you dreamed about it because carrying the water was something real…” (Hart, n.d., pg. 1). Even though
being chosen for something small like to carry a water bucket may seem trivial and unimportant to the reader at first, the story expertly
portrays how stereotypes favor one group over the other and are continued for no justified reason. Once the reader is shown why this
stereotype is continued they begin to feel that what is being portrayed is unjust for the diminished group, the girls. This is exactly how
Feminists and the Feminism movement have felt for centuries and why they feel their cause is just and necessary. Feminist Theory is
represented as the question that is later asked by the Protagonist Alma, which seeks to understand and challenge the status quo of the
stereotype that is being held as fact.
Feminist Theory argues that “men and women should be equal politically, economically, and socially” (“Feminist Theory”, n.d.).
Feminist theory is the core of all other branching feminist theories, but unlike some other theories it “does not subscribe to differences
between men and women or similarities between men and women, nor does it refer to excluding men or only furthering women's causes”
(“Feminist Theory”, n.d.). Feminist Theory is what is being displayed and argued in The Friday Everything Changed. When the main
protagonist Alma asks, "Why can't girls go for the water, too?" (Hart, n.d., pg. 2), this begins the shift of power that the stereotype has
over not only the girls, but the boys as well. The beginning of losing that power the boys have over this menial task is felt and they
instantly begin to defend their sole source of power they have over the girls. All of the boys knew “that something of theirs was being
threatened and that, as long as there was the remotest chance that any girl might get to carry the water, they had to do everything in their
power to stop it” (Hart, n.d., pg. 2). This can be likened to our own real societies and lives. When we begin to lose power over another
group and even though we did not know that our power was based in tradition and not in fact we will still fight to maintain that power
and the status quo we are so comfortable living in. With any movement that seeks to gain equality it first must change the minds of those
it is trying to be equal with. This is what Feminist Theory and many other equal rights movements have sought to accomplish for their
cause.
At the end of the short story the girls are able to change the status quo and defeat the gender inequality stereotype that was
accepted to be fact in their school. Instead of two boys being chosen to fetch the water with the water bucket, instead two girls are chosen.
Stereotypes such as this one are not based in fact, but merely tradition passed down for so long that it is thought to be real. Feminist
Theory is plainly evident in this short story of stereotypical physical dominance males are perceived to have over the females. Feminist
Theory is represented as the question that is asked by the main protagonist Alma, and this question ultimately changes the minds of not
only the teacher, but the boys as well. Once a stereotype is exposed and questioned then it can be defeated by those who seek equality.
This is the goal and fight of Feminist Theory and will continue to be so until gender inequality stereotypes are exposed and defeated for
the benefit of females and males.

The Friday Everything Changed

Anne Hart
Tradition. In Miss Ralston's class the boys have always carried the water bucket. Until one day,
the girls decide it's time to challenge the rule. ..
The last hour of school on Friday afternoons was for Junior Red Cross. The little kids would get
out their Junior Red Cross pins and put them on and us big kids would start elbowing down the aisles to
the book cupboard at the back to see who would get the interesting magazines. There was a big pile of
them and they were of two kinds: the National Geographic and the Junior Red Cross News. Because
the boys were stronger and sat near the back they usually got the National Geographics first, which
meant they could spend the rest of Red Cross looking at African ladies wearing nothing on top, while
us girls had to be satisfied with the Junior Red Cross News, which showed little African kids wearing
lots of clothes and learning how to read. Apart from the magazines for the big kids and maybe the
teacher reading a story to the little kids, about the only other thing that happened regularly during Red
Cross was picking the two boys who would carry water the next week.
In our school the water bucket always stood on a shelf at the front of the room just behind the
teacher's desk. First you'd make a paper cup out of a piece of scribbler paper, then you'd grab the
teacher's attention from wherever it happened to be and then up you'd go to the front of the room for a
drink from the water bucket.
I t was kind of interesting to stand at the front of the room behind the teacher's desk and drink
water. The school looked different from up there and sometimes you could get just a glimpse of an idea
of what the teacher thought she was all about. I mean, from the front, looking down on those rows of
kids with their heads bent over their desks and the sun coming in the windows and the blackboards and
all that stuff on the walls, you might almost think, at first glance, that you were looking at one of those
real city schools -like in the health books-where the kids were all so neat and all the same size. But
after the first strange moment it just became our school again, because you had to start adding in things
like the coal stove and the scarred old double desks and the kids themselves. I mean, we just didn't look
like the kids in those pictures. Maybe it was because we were so many different sizes-from the kids
snuffling in the front rows over their Nan and Dan readers to the big boys hunched over their desks at
the back-maybe it was because we wore so many heavy clothes all the time, or maybe it was because of
something that wasn't even there at all but seemed to be on the faces of the kids in those city pictures: a
look as if they liked being where they were.
But all that's a long way from Junior Red Cross and who would carry the water .
The water for our school came from a pump at the railway station, which was about a quarter of
a mile away. One day long ago a health inspector had come around and had announced that water must
be made available to the school. For a while there had been some talk of digging a well but in the end
we got a big, shiny, galvanized water bucket and permission to use the railway station pump. And from
that day on-for all the boys-the most important thing that happened at school, even more important than
softball, was who would get to carry the water.
If you were a boy it was something you started dreaming about in Grade I, even though there
was not the remotest chance it could ever happen to you before at least Grade 5, and only then if the
teacher thought you were big and strong enough. You dreamed about it partly because carrying the
water meant you were one of the big guys, and carrying the water meant you could get away from
school for maybe half an hour at a time. But mostly you dreamed about it because carrying the water
was something real, and had absolutely nothing whatever to do with Nan and Dan and all that stuff.
So every Friday afternoon toward the end of Red Cross, when it got to be time for the teacher to pick
the two boys who would go for water the next week, all the National Geographics came to rest like
huge butterflies folding up their yellow wings and a big hush fell all over the back rows. And that's the
way it had always been until one extraordinary afternoon when, right out of the blue, just after the
teacher had picked Ernie Chapman and Garnet Dixon to carry the water, my seatmate, Alma Niles, put
up her hand and said: "Why can't girls go for the water, too?"
If one of those German planes, like in the war movies, had suddenly appeared over the school
and dropped a bomb, we all couldn't have been more surprised. A silence fell over the room and in that
silence everyone looked at the teacher .
Now our teacher that year was named Miss Ralston and even though she came from River
Hibbert we all liked her quite a lot. She was strict but she was never really mean like some of the
teachers we'd had. Because she was young (she'd just finished Grade 11 the year before herself-River
Hibbert had fancy things like Grade 11) she'd had quite a rough time the first week of school with the
bigger boys. But she was pretty big herself and after she'd strapped most of them up at the front of the
room before our very eyes (and even the little kids could see that it really hurt) things had settled down.
The boys kind of admired Miss Ralston for strapping so hard, and us girls admired her because she was
so pretty and wore nylon stockings and loafers all the time. But the really unusual thing about Miss
Ralston was the way she sometimes stopped in the middle of a lesson and looked at us as if we were
real people, instead of just a lot of kids who had to be pushed through to their next grades. And that
was why, on that Friday afternoon when Alma Niles put up her hand and said: "Why can't girls go for
the water, too?" we all turned and looked at Miss Ralston first instead of just bursting out laughing at
Alma right away.
And Miss Ralston, instead of saying, "Whoever heard of girls going for the water?" or, " Are
you trying to be saucy, Alma?" like any other teacher would, said nothing at all for a moment but just
looked very hard at Alma, who had gone quite white with the shock of dropping such a bombshell.
After a long moment, when she finally spoke, Miss Ralston, instead of saying, "Why that's out
of the question, Alma," threw a bombshell of her own: "I'll think about that," she said-as if, you know,
she would-"and I'll let you know next Friday."
The trouble started right away as soon as we got into the school yard, because all the boys
knew, from the moment Miss Ralston had spoken, that something of theirs was being threatened and
that, as long as there was the remotest chance that any girl might get to carry the water, they had to do
everything in their power to stop it. Like driving a tractor or playing hockey for the Toronto Maple
Leafs, carrying water was real, and because it was real it belonged to them.
So they went right for Alma as soon as she came out of school and that was when another funny
thing happened. Instead of just standing back and watching Alma get beaten up, as we usually did
when the boys were after someone, the girls rushed right in to try and help her. In the first place we all
liked Alma, and in the second place we all had seen, as clearly as the boys, what our carrying the water
might mean; that, incredibly, we, too, might get to skip school for half an hour at a time, that we, too,
might get to sneak into Rowsell's store on the way back and, most dizzying thought of all, that we too
might get to do something real.
And, because we were so intoxicated by the whole idea, and took the boys so much by surprise
by standing up to them, we somehow managed to get Alma and ourselves out of the schoolyard with
only a few bruises and torn stockings, leaving the boys in possession of the schoolyard where, as we
could glimpse over our shoulders as we ran down the hill, they had begun to gather together in a single
ominous knot.
And for the rest of that weekend, though of course we never talked about it in front of our
parents, all we could think of, both boys and girls, was what was going to happen at school that coming
week.
The first thing, clearly evident by recess on Monday morning, was that the boys had decided not
to let us girls field at softball any more.
Softball at our school used to go like this: every Monday morning at recess two of the bigger
boys-that year it was usually Ernie Chapman and Junior LeBlanc-used to pick their teams for the week.
Whoever came out on top in laddering hands up the softball bat got to pick first and the loser second
and so it went-back and forth-until all the boys who were considered good enough to be on a team had
been picked. Then Ernie and Junior laddered the bat again to see which side would get up first and the
losing side took to the field to be joined by the little boys who hadn't been picked and us older girls
who were allowed to act as sort of permanent supplementary fielders. And for the rest of the week the
teams remained locked, at every recess and lunchtime, in one long softball game which had, as we
discovered to our surprise several years later when the television came through, some strange rules.
The way we played, for example, every single boy had to get out before the other team could
come in. And any boy hitting a home run not only had the right to bat straight away again but also to
bring back into the game any boy who had got out. Which led to kids who couldn't remember their sixtimes
table properly being able to announce-say, by noon on Thursday-"The score's now 46 to 39
because, in the last inning starting Tuesday lunchtime, Junior's team was all out except for Irving Snell,
who hit three homers in a row off of Lorne Ripley, and brought in Ira and Jim and Elton who brought
in the rest except for Austin who got out for the second time on Wednesday with a foul ball one of the
girls caught behind third base. .."
Some days it got so exciting that at noon we couldn't wait to eat our lunches but would rush
straight into the schoolyard, gobbling our sandwiches as we ran, toward that aching moment when the
ball, snaking across the yellow grass or arching toward us from the marsh sky, might meet our open,
eager hands.
So it was a hard blow, Monday morning recess, when Ernie Chapman whirled the bat around
his head, slammed it down as hard as he could on home base and announced. "The first girl that goes
out to field, we break her neck." We clustered forlornly around the girls' entry door knowing there was
nothing we could really do.
"Oh Alma," mourned Minnie Halliday, biting the ends of her long, brown braids, "why couldn't
you just have kept your mouth shut?" It was a bad moment. If we'd tried to go out to field they'd have
picked us off one by one. We couldn't even play softball on our own. None of us owned a bat and ball.
If it hadn't been for Doris Pomeroy, we might have broken rank right there and then. Doris, who
was in Grade 9 and had had a home permanent and sometimes wore nail polish and had even, it was
rumored, gone swimming in the quarry all alone with Elton Lawrence, flicked a rock against the
schoolhouse wall in the silence following Minnie's remark and steadied us all by saying: "Don't be
foolish, Minnie. All we have to do is wait. They need us to field and, besides, they kind of like to have
us out there looking at them when they get up to bat."
But it was a long, hard week. Besides not letting us field, the boys picked on us whenever they
got the chance. I guess they figured that if they made things bad enough for us, sooner or later we'd go
to Miss Ralston and ask her to forget the whole thing. But all their picking on and bullying did was to
keep us together. Whenever one of us was tripped going down the aisle or got an ink ball in her hair or
got trapped in the outhouse by a bunch of boys it was as if it was happening to all of us. And looking
back on that week-when there were so many bad feelings and so many new feelings in the air-it was
kind of nice, too, because for the first time us girls found ourselves telling each other our troubles and
even our thoughts without worrying about being laughed at. And that was something new at our school.
As for Alma, who kept getting notes thrown on her desk promising her everything from a
bloody nose to having her pants pulled down, we stuck to her like burrs. But maybe Alma's hardest
moment had nothing to do with bullying at all. It was when her cousin Arnold came over to see her
Wednesday after school and asked her to drop the whole idea of girls going for the water .
"If they find out about it, Alma," said Arnold. "they'll probably take away the water bucket."
"Who's they?" asked Alma. She and Arnold had played a lot together when they were little kids
and she was used to listening to his opinions on most things.
"Well, the health inspector," said Arnold, "and guys like that."
"They'll never take away that water bucket," said Alma, though she wasn't all that sure. "They
don't care who carries the water as long as it gets carried."
" Alma," said Arnold earnestly, "the other guys would kill me if they ever found out I told you
this but sometimes carrying the water isn't that much fun. On cold days it's real hard work. You're
better off in the warm school."
Alma knew what it cost Arnold to tell her this but she stood firm. "I'm sorry, Arnold," she said.
"but I'm used to cold weather. In winter I walk to school the same as you." So Arnold went away.
If Miss Ralston, as the week wore on, noticed anything unusual going on in her school, she gave
little sign of it. She passed out the usual punishments for ink balls, she intercepted threatening notes
and tore them up unread, she looked at Alma's white face, and all she asked about were the principal
rivers of Europe. Nor were we surprised. Nothing in our experience had led us to believe the grown-ups
had the slightest inkling-or interest-in what really went on with kids.
Only Doris Pomeroy thought differently. "Miss Ralston looks real mad," said Doris as we
trailed in thankfully from Friday morning recess.
" Mad?" a couple of us asked.
"Yeah. Like when she comes out to ring the bell and we're all hanging around the entry door
like a lot of scared chickens. She rings that old handbell as if she wished all those yelling boy's heads
were under it. Of course they do things differently in River Hibbert. I know for a fact that girls there get
to play on softball teams just like the boys."
"On teams? Just like the boys?" But it was all too much for us to take in at that moment, so
preoccupied were we with that after- noon's decision on the water. All that long, hard week it was as if
Friday afternoon and Junior Red Cross would never come again. Now that it was almost upon us most
of us forgot, in our excitement, at least for the time being, Doris' heady remark about softball.
So at lunchtime, just as the boys were winding up their week's game ("And real great, eh?
Without the girls?" Ernie Chapman was gloating loudly from the pitcher's mound), when Miss Ralston,
without her bell, leaped through our clustered huddles at the entry door and headed straight toward the
softball field, she took us all completely by surprise. Crunch, crunch, crunch went Miss Ralston's bright
red loafers against the cinders and the next thing we knew she'd grabbed the bat from Irving Snell and,
squinting against the sun, was twirling and lining it before our astonished eyes.
"Come on! Come on!" cried Miss Ralston impatiently to Ernie who stood transfixed before her
on the pitcher's mound. "Come on! Come on!" she cried again and she banged the bat against the
ground.
"Come on! Come on!" cried Doris Pomeroy and we rushed after her across the cinders. The first
ball Ernie threw was pretty wobbly and Miss Ralston hit it at an angle so that it fell sideways, a foul
ball, toward George Fowler's outstretched hands. " Ah-h-h-h-h," we moaned from the sidelines and
some of us closed our eyes so we wouldn't have to look. But George jumped too eagerly for such an
easy ball and it fell right through his fingers and rolled harmlessly along the ground.
Ernie took a lot more time over his second pitch. He was getting over the first shock of finding
Miss Ralston opposite him at bat and by this time he was receiving shouts of encouragement from all
over the field.
"Get her! Get her!" the boys yelled recklessly at Ernie and they all fanned out behind the bases.
Ernie took aim slowly. None of us had ever seen the pirouettings of professional pitchers but there was
a certain awesome ceremony, nevertheless, as Ernie spat savagely on the ball, glared hard at Miss
Ralston, slowly swung back his big right arm and, poised for one long moment, his whole body
outstretched, threw the ball as hard as he could toward home base where Miss Ralston waited, her body
rocking with the bat.
For a fleeting moment we had a glimpse of what life might be like in River Hibbert and then
Miss Ralston hit the ball.
"Ah-h-h-h-h-h," we cried as it rose high in the air, borne by the marsh wind, and flew like a bird
against the sun, across the road and out of sight, into the ox pasture on the other side.
" Ah-h-h-h-h-h ..."
We all stared at Miss Ralston. "School's in," she announced over her shoulder, walking away.
Hitting the ball into the ox pasture happened maybe once a year .
That afternoon, toward the end of Red Cross, there was a big hush all over the room.
"Next week," said Miss Ralston, closing the school register, tidying her books, "next week
Alma Niles and Joyce Shipley will go for the water ."
She swept her hand over the top of her desk and tiny dust motes danced in the slanting sun.