Marxism with full detail helps every learner to understand in better way

1. MARXISM
PRESENTED BY :YASIN AHMAD
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2. Historic Development:
Begin in the 19th century as a pragmatic view of history that
offered the working classes of society an opportunity to change
their world
It offered humanity a social, political, economic, and cultural
understanding of the nature of reality, society and the individual.
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3. Karl Marx:
 Karl Heinrich Marx
was a German
philosopher,
economist, historian,
sociologist, political
theorist, journalist,
critic of political
economy, and
socialist.
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4. Karl Marx:
 Germany 1818
 UK 1883
 Roots of Marxist
literary theory.
 His writing became
the basic of
Marxism approach.
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5. Karl Marx (statues & Tomb)
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6. Marx articulates his view on the
nature of reality in his work:
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7. The German Ideology (1945)
 Marx declares that “consciousness does not determine
life: life determines consciousness.”
 Humans define themselves.
 He said that our ideas and concepts about ourselves
fashioned in everyday discourse in the language of real
life.
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8. Dialectical materialism
 Core belief of Marxism
 Marx believed that society had progressed from one economic
system to another
 As society progresses from a feudal system to a more market-
based economy, the actual process from producing, distributing,
and consuming goods becomes more complex
 People’s functions within the economic system become
differentiated.
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9. Two Economic means of production
within a society
 Base
Engenders and
controls all human
institutions and
ideologies.
 Superstructure
All social and legal
institutions, political
and educational
systems, religions,
and art.
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10. Four historical periods (Marx)
Feudalism : (Social System)
Capitalism : (Production for Profit)
Socialism : (Social Ownership)
Communism : (Society’s ultimate goal “The worker’s
Paradise”)
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11. The Communist Manifesto(1848)
 Marx and Engels further develop Marxism ideas.
Proletariat:
Class of society which
does not have ownership
of the means of
production.
Bourgeoisie:
wealthy class that rules
society.
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12. The Communist Manifesto(1848)
 States that the history of all
existing societies is the history of
class struggle.
 They declare that the capitalists,
or the bourgeoisie, had
successfully enslaved the
working class, or the proletariat
through economic policies and
production of goods.
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13. Das Capital(1867)
 History became the basis for 20th century Marxism,
socialism, and communism
 History, an understanding of people and their actions
and beliefs is determined by economic conditions.
 Marx maintains that an intricate web of social
relationships emerges when any group of people
engage in the production of goods.
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14. Das capital(1867)
 The ideology of a society
such as the beliefs, values
and culture is determined
by the upper class.
 The rich become richer,
while the poor become
poorer.
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15. Russia and Marxism
Proponents and their contributions
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16. Development
 G. K. Plehanov – Translated “The Communist
Manifesto”.
 Russia – first country to promote Marxist principles.
 Leon Trotsky – became the founding father of Marxist
literary criticism as he authored Literature and
Revolution (1925).
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17. Georg Lukas
Believed that a detailed analysis of symbols, images and other
literary devices (formalism) would expose class conflict and expose
the relationship between the superstructure and the base.
 Reflectionism
 Approach to literary analysis declaring that texts directly reflect
a society's consciousness.
 Emphasizing negative effects of capitalism such as alienation.
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18. The Frankfurt
School
 Neo-Marxist group
devoted to developing
western Marxist
principles
 A text reveals a
culture’s fragmentation
and not its wholeness
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19. Antonio Gramsci
 He said that there is a complex relationship the base and the
superstructure.
 The bourgeoisie establish and maintain what he calls hegemony.
 As sustainers of the economic base, the dominant class thus enjoys
the prestige of the masses and controls the ideology that shapes
individual consciousness.
 Literature actually concerns itself with the bourgeoisie.
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20. Louis Althusser
Production Theory
 The superstructure can and does influence the base.
 Althusser believes that the prevailing ideology forms the attitudes of
people in society through a process he calls interpellation or “hailing
the subject.”
 The people’s worldview is thus craftily shaped by a complex network
of messages sent to them through the elements contained in the
superstructure, including the arts.
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21. Marxist Theorists Today
 Fredric Jameson believes that the function of literary
analysis is to uncover the political unconscious present
in a text.
 He said that all critics must be aware of their own
ideology when analyzing a text and must therefore
possess dialectical self-awareness.
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22. Marxist Theorists Today
 Terry Eagleton
 Believes that literature is neither a product of pure
inspiration nor the product of the author's feelings.
 Literature is a product of an ideology. This ideology
is a result of the social interactions that occur
between people in definite times and locations.
 The critic’s task is to reconstruct an author’s
ideology.
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23. Assumptions
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24. Assumptions
 Marxism is not primarily a literary theory that can be used to interpret a
text.
 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.
 Marxism is material, not spiritual.
 All of our actions and responses to such activities are related in some way
to our culture.
 The structure of our society is built on a series of ongoing conflicts
between social classes.
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25. Assumptions
 In order to understand ourselves and our world, we must first
acknowledge the interrelatedness of all our actions within the
society.
 It is our cultural and our social circumstances that determine who
we are.
 Capitalists control the society’s ideology or social consciousness.
 The focus of literature is the relationship of a society’s
superstructure to other elements and to the base.
 Marxism addresses the cry of working class.
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26. Methodology
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27. Marxism
Bourgeoisie
Vs
proletariat
Class
struggle
Ideology
Express by
Author
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28. Marxism Methodology
 Concerns for the working classes and the individual.
 Recognizing the interrelatedness of all human activities.
 Deals with more than the conventional literary themes,
matters of style, plot, characterization and the usual
emphasis on figures of speech and other literary devices.
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29. Concerns of Marxism
1. Author’s life
2. Time/period in which the text was written
3. Cultural milieu
4. Ideology expressed by the author
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30. Ideology
 Expressed by the author, as evidenced through his or her
fictional world, and how this ideology interacts with the
reader’s personal ideology.
 Class conflict with the dominant class and its ideology being
imposed.
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31.  The task of the critic is to uncover the ideology and show how
such a 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 of the fictional world’s
characters. Setting, society, or any other aspect of the text.
 It could also be by examining the history and the culture of the
times reflected in the text.
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32. Any Question?
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33. Thank you
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