Origins of Marxist Approach:
The Marxist Approach is based on the theories of the philosopher Karl Marx. These
theories were developed specifically to analyze how society functions where there is constant change.
Marx’s Beliefs:
- Philosophy was meant to be used as a tool to bring about change
- The capitalist system caused the alienation of the workers, therefore causing them not to be able to live to the fullest
- Capalist system would eventually cause the proletarians to rise up against the upper classes in a bloody revolt and
replace the system with a communist one. Marx mainly focused on economics, particularly the material forces of production,
distribution, exchange, and consumption
History of the Marxist Approach:
- 19th century experiments in communal living
- Publication of Marx’s works laid the groundwork for literary critics
- 20th Century saw interest in analyzing class conflict and the capitalist system
- The Marxist Approach evolve and gained interest when people felt that the formalistic approach was inadequate
The Marxist Approach focuses on:
- Concentrates most on the relationship between the test and reality
- Those using the methods tend to look at tensions and contradictions within a literary work. Marxism originally developed to analyze just such tensions and contradictions within society
- See literature as intimately linked to social power, and thus their analysis of literature is linked to larger social
questions
- Ultimately past of a much larger effort to uncover the inner workings of society
- Formalists generally look at a piece of literature as a self-contained entity while those analyzing using the Marxist
Method those generally look at the unresolved tensions or conflicts
Base-Superstructure Model: Main
interest for Marx analysis
Superstructure: Art, politics,
religion, culture, the law, ideology
Base: Real economic relations,
labor, capital, factories
Marxist analysts feel that there is a direct
connection between the base and the superstructure in literature
Taken from A handbook of Critical Approaches
to Literature, fourth ed. Guerin, et al.
