2. • Marxism is a socio-economic philosophy that analyzes the class struggles of laborers which leads to the gap
in wealth and privileges between laborers and employers.
3. Karl Marx Background
◦ Karl Marx was a son of Jewish parents and was born in Trier, Germany on May 5th,1818. His father was a lawyer who
converted to Christianity because his legal career was deemed necessary for him to do so.
◦ Marx Studied law and philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin.
◦ After he married his childhood sweetheart, Jenny von Westphalen in June 1843, they immediately moved to Paris which
was the center of socialist thought and of the more extreme group that went under the name of communism.
◦ Throughout his time in Paris, he befriended Friedrich Engels, whom he met from the publication of German-French
Yearbooks. This meeting marks the beginning of their collaboration on their later texts.
◦ Their meeting led to the important text published by them called The Communist Manifesto (1848) which led to the basis of
Marxism Theory.
4. ◦ He believes that social class struggle should be eradicated. In his book, Manifesto of the Communist Party, he
explained that social class struggle has existed since history, dating back to ancient Rome and the Middle
Ages. Example of social class in history includes patricians, knights, plebeians, and slaves in ancient Rome;
feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, and serfs in Middle Ages.
◦ He noticed a pattern throughout history that society anywhere always became 2 sides of the opposition,
namely the bosses or Bourgeoisie; and the workers or Proletariat. The bosses owned the means of
production, such as machinery, a plot of land, etc, but they did not do anything to help the workers; whereas
the workers were not making money as much as the bosses and had nothing to say about the business.
5. Core Elements of Marxism
Marxists believed that there are conflicts of classes in Capitalist society. Fundamentally between the
Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat.
◦ Bourgeoisie (Those who own and control the means of production in society)
◦ Proletariat (Those who simply sell their labor power in the market of Capitalism)
This led to the separation of Capitalist society into two related influence
◦ The economic base (or infrastructure) and
◦ The political and ideological superstructure
6. The Ruling Class uses these two ways in order to control the other class.
◦ Through the use of force (Repressive State Apparatuses)
◦ Through the use of ideology/socialization (Ideological State Apparatuses)
Step by Step into the Goal of Marxism
◦ Primitive Communism
◦ The Ancient Epoch (Slave Society)
◦ Feudal Society
◦ Capitalist Society
◦ Communist Society
7. Relation to Literary Works
◦ For Marxism, Art is considered a superstructure of society.
◦ Marxist views on art are the product of the economic and ideological determinants specific to that era.
By seeing art as it is, not as art itself, generally, these questions will arise:
◦ What is the role of the class?
◦ How do the characters oppose the oppressor?
◦ Does the art carry a Marxist view or rather, does the art oppose Marxist views?
◦ How did the artist depict the oppression?
◦ Does the art propose new idealistic views on things? If yes what was it?
9. Introduction
Don DeLillo is one of American most inveterate and influential fiction novel authors. In this article, the
researcher tries to analyze his novel titled Underworld from Marxism and post-Marxism theory. The Novel
took place in the post-Cold War 1990s. The setting of the story depicted in this novel is the suppression of
'history' by making the general public think the Cold War is history. This novel features many underworlds both
literal and metaphorical views of class separation and struggle. The painting of Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph
of Death, was the recurring theme that depicts the uprising of the underworld literally and metaphorically.
10. Class Separation and Struggle
Class separation depicted in this novel can be seen in the art the characters created.
◦ Moonman 157 was one of the characters that represent the Lower Class by expressing it on graffiti. They can
be identified as 'slums and dumpsters', 'The people who lived in the cable rooms and up on the catwalks', and
'in the unused freight tunnel under the West Side’.
◦ Klara Sax represents the middle class in his art, Long Tall Sally, in which she painted two hundred
decommissioned and abandoned B-52 bombers. In the process of painting the plane, she organized
volunteers and gave them a makeshift camp to finish her artwork.
◦ The fictional ‘lost’ film by Sergei Eisenstein titled Unterwelt represents the High Class. The only people that
can watch this film are Klara Sax, a carefully curated audience of New York artists, and intellectuals.
11. The depiction of class separation can be seen when the audience watched Eisenstein’s film and Moonman is
riding his subway train below. The passing of the train can be felt by the audience. The character's artwork and
fictional film symbolize the oppressed class being driven literally to the underworld.
Researchers used a comparative study by comparing one theory to another. The work of Slavoj Žižek, Ernesto
Laclau, and Andreas Huyssen was the main comparison theory used by researchers. The researcher’s findings
on the author's position and decision toward Marxist critique were left unresolved.
12. References
◦ Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - Manifesto of the Communist Party
◦ Louis Althusser - Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses
◦ M. H. Abrams - A Glossary Of Literary Terms
◦ Marx & Engels Collected Works
◦ Terry Eagleton - Marxism and Literary Criticism
