The Marxist Criticism

The Marxist Criticism

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  Marxist Criticism
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   Name :Dodiya Mehul Maheshbhai  Roll No : 23  Enrolment No : 2069108420180011  Class : M.A. Sem 2  Year : 2017/19  Submitted to : Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, Bhavnagar
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   Begin inthe 19th Century as a pragmatic view of history that offered the working classes of society on opportunity to change their world.  The German philosopher Karl Marx and the German Sociologist Friedrich Engels are the founding Father of this school of Criticism.  In 1848, they jointly wrote the Communist Manifesto, Which is still in vogue. Marxist Criticism is not interested in solving individual problems, or Attaining individual salvation.  Marx’s famous Maxims were, “nothing human is alien to me’ and ‘one must doubt of everything.’
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   Marxism isa materialist philosophy. It supports a naturalist as oppose to super naturalist world view.  It is opposed to idealist philosophy which conceptualizes a spiritual world elsewhere that influences and controls the material world.  Karl Marx himself has commented on his revolutionary nature of Marxism, “The Philosophy have only interpreted the world in various way; the point is to change it.” it is true that while other philosophies tried to understand the world, Marxism tried to change it.
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  “The political andeconomic philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in which the concept of class struggle plays a central role in understanding society’s allegedly inevitable development from Bourgeois oppression under capitalism to a socialist ultimately classless Society” Definition of terms 1. Bourgeoisie : the name is given by Marx, to the owns of the means of productions in a society. 2. Ideology : A belief system 3. Proletariat : the name is given by Marx, to the worker(Labor) in the society. 4. Capitalism : is an economic system that is based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods and services for profit.
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   It iswritten by Marx and Engels.  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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   History becamethe basic for 20th century Marxism, Socialism, and Communism.  History and 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.  The ideology of a society such as the beliefs, values and culture is determined by the upper class.  The rich became richer, while the poor became poorer.
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   Society progressesthrough the struggle between opposing forces. It is this struggle between opposing classes that result in social transformation.  During the Feudal period the tension was between the Feudal Lords and Peasants and in the peasants and in the Industrial age the struggle was between the capitalist class and the industrial working class.  This confrontation, according to Marx, will finally result in replacing the system by Socialism.
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   Another importantconcept used by Marx was the Dialectic. (early 18th cent, using by Hegel)  Hegel believed that the world is governed by thought and material existence is the expression of an immaterial spiritual essence but Karl Marx used the same concept to interpret the progress the material world.  Marx argued that all mental (ideological) system are Products of real social and Economic existence. Marxist dialectic can be understood as the science of the general and abstract Laws of development of nature, society and thought.  Dialectical materialism was an effective tool in the hand of Marxists in revealing the secrets behind the social progresses and their future course of development.
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   One ofthe fundamental concept of classical Marxist thought is the concept of Base and Superstructure, which refer to the relationship between the Material means of production and the cultural world of art and ideas.  Base : engenders and control all human institutions and ideologies.  Superstructure : all social and legal institution, political and educational systems, religious and art.  It is essentially a symbolic concept which employed the structure of a building to explain this relationship.  The foundation or the base stands for the socio-economic relations and the mode of production and the superstructure stands for art, law, Political, religion and ideology.
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   Expressed bythe author as evidenced through his or her fictional world and how this ideology interacts with the reader’s personal ideology.  Expose class conflict with the dominant class and its ideology being imposed.  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.
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   Marxism isnot 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 word..  Marxism is not spiritual but it is Material.  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.
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   The structureof our society is built on a series of on going conflicts between social classes.  Capitalists control the society’s ideology or social consciousness. (hegemony)  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.