Karl Marx developed a methodology for analyzing social organization scientifically and viewed human history as a series of class struggles between the oppressed and oppressors. Marxist ideology sees political evolution leading from feudalism to bourgeois capitalism and eventually to socialism and communism. Under capitalism, the bourgeoisie exploits the proletariat labor force, growing poorer over time until revolt leads to restructuring. True communism involves the underclasses owning the means of production, not the government. Marxist literary theory analyzes how literature reflects social institutions and class struggles, serving ideological functions. The Marxist critic examines how works portray class relations and oppression.

1. Dr Digambar M. Ghodke
Assistant Professor,
Department of English
Sangamner College, Sangamner

2. Marxism
 Karl Marx (1818-1883) was primarily a theorist and historian.
 He examined social organization in a scientific way.
 Thereby created a methodology for social science: political
science.
 He perceived human history to have consisted of a series of
struggles between classes--between the oppressed and the
oppressing.
 Freud saw "sexual energy" to be the motivating factor behind
human endeavor .
 Nabokov felt artistic impulse was the real factor.
 Marx thought that "historical materialism" was the ultimate
driving force,.
 It is a notion involving the distribution of resources, gain,
production, and such matters.

3. Marxist Ideology
 The supposedly "natural" political evolution involved
"feudalism" leading to "bourgeois capitalism" leading to
"socialism" and finally to "utopian communism."
 In bourgeois capitalism, the privileged bourgeoisie rely on the
proletariat--the labor force responsible for survival.
 Marx theorized that when profits are not reinvested in the
workers but in creating more factories, the workers will grow
poorer and poorer until no short-term patching is possible or
successful.
 At a crisis point, revolt will lead to a restructuring of the
system.
 For a political system to be considered communist, the
underclasses must own the means of production--not the
government nor the police force.

4. Communism
 Therefore, aside from certain first-century Christian
communities and other temporary communes,
communism has not yet really existed.
 The Soviet Union was actually state-run capitalism.
 Marx is known also for saying that "Religion is the opiate
of the people," so he was somewhat aware of the problem
that Lenin later dwelt on.
 Lenin was convinced that workers remain largely
unaware of their own oppression since they are
convinced by the state to be selfless.
 One might point to many "opiates of the people" under
most political systems--diversions that prevent real
consideration of trying to change unjust economic
conditions.

5. Marxist Criticism
 According to Marxists, and to other scholars in fact,
literature reflects those social institutions out of which it
emerges and is itself a social institution with a particular
ideological function.
 Literature reflects class struggle and materialism: think how
often the quest for wealth traditionally defines characters.
 So Marxists generally view literature "not as works created
in accordance with timeless artistic criteria, but as 'products'
of the economic and ideological determinants specific to that
era" (Abrams 149).
 Literature reflects an author's own class or analysis of class
relations, however piercing or shallow that analysis may be.

6. The Role of the Marxist Critic
 The Marxist critic simply is a careful reader
or viewer who keeps in mind issues of power
and money, and any of the following kinds of
questions:
○ What role does class play in the work; what is the author's
analysis of class relations?
○ How do characters overcome oppression?
○ In what ways does the work serve as propaganda for the
status quo; or does it try to undermine it?
○ What does the work say about oppression; or are social
conflicts ignored or blamed elsewhere?
○ Does the work propose some form of utopian vision as a
solution to the problems encountered in the work?

7. Marxist literary theory
 Marxist literary theory is based on the philosophy and principles of
Karl Marx (1918-1883) and Friedrich Engles (1820-1895).
 Marx and Engels introduced communism in their jointly
written Communist Manifesto of 1848.
 The objective of Marxism is
to bring about a classless society, based on the common ownership of the
means of production, distribution and exchange.
 Marxism is a materialist philosophy because
it explains things without assuming the existence of worlds or of forces
beyond the natural world around us and the society we live in.
 For Marxists,
history is class struggle and progress comes through the struggle for power
between different social classes.
Marxists believe that
literature can only be understood by viewing it in the context of history and
society, both of which are and have been dominated by class struggle and by
the ownership of the means of production.

8. Ideology
 In every age, mankind works to an ideology, a superstructure of ideas
which they erect themselves to explain how the society works.
 Marx’s The German Ideology defines ideology
 as the sets of beliefs, concepts, and ways of thinking, ideas and values
that shape our thoughts and is used to explain and understand the
world.
 More precisely, and in the Marxian sense it is a system of beliefs or ideas
of an economic and political system.
 Marx and Engels published The German Ideology in 1846, the central
thesis of which for later literary theory is the idea that culture is
materially produced.
 The work constituted a preliminary statement of their later and more
developed theory of historical materialism that consciousness and its
products are determined by material conditions.

9. Superstructure & Base
 According to its specifically Marxist use the ideology that
is dominant in any era is the product of its economic
structure and the resulting class-relations and class
interests.
 In his famous architectural metaphor Marx represented
ideology as a “superstructure” of which the contemporary
socio-economic system is the “base.”
 In the present age the dominant ideology is that of the
property-owning class, the bourgeoisie.
 A strict Marxist critic treats all literary works of art as
being dominated by the bourgeois mentality, and demands
a literature that will present “social realism.”

10. Marxist Thinkers
 George Lukacs, the Hungarian thinker and the most widely
influential of Marxist critics represent the flexible view of the role
of ideology.
 He inaugurated a distinctively Hegelian style of Marxist thought,
treating literary works as reflections of an unfolding system.
 Bertolt Brecht, another prominent Marxist theoretician rejected
the kind of formal unity admired by Lukacs and opposed the social
realism.
 His well known theoretical device, the alienation effect, has
similarity to the Russian concept of defamiliarization.
 He named his theory of realism “anti-Aristotelian” .
 His epic theatre signified primarily his attempt to emulate on the
stage the objectivity of epic narrative.
 His aim was to prevent the spectators empathizing with the
characters and their action, so as to encourage them to criticize,
rather than passively to accept the social conditions that the play
represents.

11. Other Marxist Theorists
 The Frankfurt School of Marxist critics rejected realism altogether.
 The institute of social research at Frankfurt founded in 1923 practiced
what is called “Critical Theory.”
 This was a wide ranging form of social analysis based on Hegelian Marxism
and including Freudian elements.
 The leading figures in this philosophy and aesthetics were Marx
Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse.
 The 1960s saw the influence of structuralism on Marxian theory.
 Both traditions believe that individuals cannot be understood apart from
their social existence.
 Lucien Goldman, a Roman theorist based in France single-handedly
developed the method of Marxist literary criticism known as “genetic
structuralism”.
 Despite their difference Marxist cultural theories refuse to separate art
from society.
 All Marxist theories continue to assert that certain inequalities such as
class exploitation and poverty is ‘wrong’ and that this is very much related
to literature.
 Marxism is thus both a political movement and a form of intellectual
resistance.