Political reading 1:

Marxism
Marxism in a capsule
• the principles of Marxism were not
designed to serve as a theory about
how to interpret texts
• a set of social, economic, and
political ideas that would change the
world
• inequitable economic relationships
as the source of class conflict
• feudalism, capitalism, socialism
Marxism's history
• often thought of as a 20th century
phenomenon
• Karl Heinrich Marx (1818–1883), a 19th
century German philosopher and
economist
• The German Ideology (1845)
• the means of production controls a
society’s institutions and beliefs
• dialetical materialism → communism
• thesis + antithesis = synthesis
Marxism's history
• Communist Manifesto (1848) by Marx and
Friedrich Engels
• class struggle as the driving force behind history
→ revolution
• workers would overturn capitalists, take control of
economic production, and abolish private property
by turning it over to the government to be
distributed fairly.
• → no more class distinctions
• Das Kapital (1867) [3 vols.] - history is determined
by economic conditions
• an end to private ownership of public utilities,
transportation, and the means of production
Marxism's history
• Marxism was not designed as a method of literary analysis
• But provided a new way of reading and understanding literature
• link exists between literature and Marxism
• literature as a means of productive critical dialogue and at times
viewed as a threat if it did not promote party ideology
• Stalin made certain that literature promoted socialism, Soviet
actions, and its heroes
Marxism applied to literature
• Georg Lukács (1885–1971), a Hungarian critic,
theorized reflectionism / vulgar Marxism
• text will reflect the society that has produced it
• employs close reading; discovers how characters
and their relationships typify and reveal class
conflict, the socioeconomic system, or the politics
of a time and place
• leads to understanding that system and the
author’s worldview, or weltanschauung
• ills of capitalism → fragmentation and alienation
Marxism applied to literature
• Louis Althusser (1918–1990) - Algerian-born
French philosopher
• his ideas may be opposite of Lukács's－literature
and art can affect society, even lead it to
revolution
• built on Antonio Gramsci’s idea that the dominant
class controls the views of the people by many
means - hegemony
• the working class is manipulated to accept the
ideology of the dominant class - interpellation
Marxism applied to literature
• interpellation is done through reinforcing capitalistic ideology
through its arts
• BUT the arts of the privileged are not all the arts that exist
• the working class will develop its own culture, a new
hegemony
• Althusser's is also called production theory
• Marxism was used in analyzing American literature in the 1930s
Marxism applied to literature
• Fredric Jameson - used Marxism plus
Freudian principles; talked about the political
unconscious, the exploitation and oppression
buried in a work
• Terry Eagleton - examined the interrelations
between ideology and literary form; always set
himself against the dominance of the privileged
class
• they are typical of those who combined two or
more critical approaches
Reading through a Marxist lens
• Economic Power
• Materialism versus
Spirituality
• Class Conflict
• Art, Literature, and
Ideologies
Economic Power
• the moving force behind human history is its
economic systems, the forces of production
• people’s lives are determined by their economic
circumstances
• material circumstances - economic conditions
• historical situation - ideological atmosphere
• Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Economic Power
• means of production structure society
• capitalism is composed of bourgeoisie and
proletariat
• How is this shown in The Necklace?
• Although Marx saw history as progressive and
inevitable, what's wrong with capitalism?
• Ans: It involved maintaining the power of a few by
the repression of many.
Economic Power
• Some of the damage wrought by capitalism is psychological.
• capitalism preys on the insecurities of consumers
• Give examples of ads which show this 'preying'.
• commodification - focus is not use value but sign and
exchange values
• How did Mme. Loisel give more importance to sign value?
• → conspicuous consumption
Economic Power
• base - economic system
• superstructure - social, political, and ideological systems and
institutions
• the dominant class controls the superstructure
• literature (and other such products) may mirror society’s
consciousness - and alienation and fragmentation.
• Or it can be the other way around...
Economic Power
• Who are the powerful people in the society depicted in the text?
• Who are the powerless people?
• Are the two groups depicted with equal attention?
• Which group are you encouraged to admire?
• Which do you have sympathy for?
• Why do the powerful people have their power?
• Why is this power denied to others?
• From what is the power in the narrative derived? For example, is it
inherited? Based on money? A result of violence?
Materialism vs. Spirituality
• For Marx, reality is material, not spiritual.
• philosophical, religious beliefs do not constitute us
• We are creations of our own cultural and social circumstances.
• By examining the relationships among socioeconomic classes
and by analyzing the superstructure, we can achieve insight into
ourselves and our society.
• the distribution of economic power undergirds the society.
• base - superstructure
• the people’s worldview is likely to be false because of control
Materialism vs. Spirituality
• What does the setting tell you about the distribution of power and
wealth?
• Is there evidence of conspicuous consumption?
• Does the society that is depicted value things for their usefulness,
for their potential for resale or trade, or for their power to convey
social status?
• Do you find in the text itself evidence that the work is a product of
the culture in which it originated?
• Where do you see characters making decisions based not on
abstract principles, but on the economic system in which they live?
Class Conflict
• the forces of production inevitably generate conflict between
social classes created by the way economic resources are used
and who profits from them.
• clash of management and labor or friction between
socioeconomic classes
• ideological confrontation is in the form of dialectical materialism
• working class not always aware of the system (false
consciousness)
• = holding the sense of identity and worth that the bourgeoisie
wants them to hold
Class Conflict
• How many different social classes do the characters represent?
• Where do they struggle with each other?
• Do you find repression and manipulation of workers by owners?
• Is there evidence of alienation and fragmentation?
• Does the bourgeoisie in the text, either consciously or unconsciously,
routinely repress and manipulate less powerful groups? If so, what are
the tools they use? News media? Religion? Literature? Art?
• Do the working-class characters realize their lack of power?
• Does the work of literature advocate reform or revolution, either overtly
or obliquely?
Art, Literature, and Ideologies
• ideology - belief system produced by the relations between the
different classes in a society
• it is presented as a reasonable, natural worldview because it
serves the interests of those in power
• “Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to
their real conditions of existence.”
• Marxism works to rid society of such deceptions by exposing
the ideological failings that have been concealed.
Art, Literature, and Ideologies
• Literature is a particularly powerful tool for maintaining the
social status quo
• This view negates the formalists
• Marxist critics are less concerned with form and craft and more
concerned on examining social realities
• identifying the ideology of a work and pointing out its worth or
its deficiencies - social ills
• depiction of inequities, an imbalance of goods and power, or
manipulation of the worker by the bourgeoisie
Art, Literature, and Ideologies
• content promotes or criticizes the historical circumstance in
which the text is set
• 'what' vs 'how'
• The 'what' overtly expresses an ideology, a particular view of
the social relations of its time and place.
• Literature may present and legitimize the approved social
relationships
• Or, it can also criticize and subvert the prevailing ideology
• historical context and the worldview of the author are also
important
Art, Literature, and Ideologies
• What ideology is revealed by your examination of economic
power, materialism, and class conflict in a given work?
• Does the work support the values of capitalism or any other
“ism” that institutionalizes the domination of one group of people
over another—for example, racism, sexism, or imperialism? Or
does it condemn such systems?
• Is the work consistent in its ideology? Or does it have inner
conflicts?
• Do you find concepts from other schools of literary criticism—for
example, cultural studies, feminism, postmodernism—
overlapping with this one?
Art, Literature, and Ideologies
• Does this text make you aware of your own acceptance of any
social, economic, or political practices that involve control or
oppression of others?
• Does the work accept socialism as historically inevitable as well
as desirable?
• Does it criticize repressive systems? Or does it approve of a
system that exists by promoting one group of people at the
expense of another—for example, a particular ethnic or minority
group?
• Where do you see similar situations in your own world?