Marxist Analysis

• Marxist Analysis

  Marxist criticism is based on the economic, political and philosophical writings of Karl Marx, a German thinker who criticised the political and economic systems of 19th Century capitalist societies.
• Marxism

  • While Marxist political ideas have largely been discredited since the collapse of Russian and Eastern European communism in the late 1980s/1990s, Marxist analysis is still a highly relevant tool for examining the power relations within societies (and the representations of societies in literature).
• 1. Conditioning

  • The following ideas are central tenets of Marxist thinking:

  1. The way we think and behave is conditioned by society.

  • Although we like to think of ourselves as free and independent, Marxist analysis looks at how far we are controlled by factors such as government, money and social class.
  • Our socio-economic circumstances determine much, if not all, of our lives. We have far fewer choices than we like to think we have.
• 1. Exploitation of capitalism
  2. Capitalism, the economic system upon which Western societies are built, relies on exploiting (unfairly taking advantage of) its workers.

  • Therefore, there is always a conflict between those who control capital (wealth) and those who are exploited.
  • The idea of a class struggle between oppressor and oppressed is central to Marxist thinking.
• 1. Alienation
  2. In Western capitalist societies, workers are treated as objects rather than human beings.

  • They are valued by the wealth they help to produce rather than as people.
  • This creates alienation: a lack of self-worth or of meaning in people’s lives.
  • Workers are not in control of their destiny and cannot fulfil their hopes and dreams by their own efforts alone.
• 1. Internalisation
  2. The writer of a text is also conditioned by their own socio-economic circumstances and so the text they produce will reflect these circumstances in its attitudes towards wealth, power, property etc.