Marxism
Karl Marx is the one to bring this theory and it is named after him only. Marxism is a philosophy developed in the second half of the 19th century that unifies social, political, and economic theory. It is mainly concerned with the battle between the working class and the ownership class and favors communism and socialism over capitalism.
Key Concerns of Marxism
1. In the Marxist literary analysis, the evolving history of humankind, of its social groupings and interrelations, of its institutions, and of its ways of thinking are largely determined by the changing mode of its “material production”— that is, of its overall economic organization for producing and distributing material goods.
2. Changes in the fundamental mode of material production effect changes in the class structure of a society, establishing in each era dominant and subordinate classes that engage in a struggle for economic, political, and social advantage.
3. Human consciousness is constituted by an ideology—that is, the beliefs, values, and ways of thinking and feeling through which human beings perceive, and by recourse to which they explain, what they take to be reality. An ideology is, in complex ways, the product of the position and interests of a particular class. In any historical era, the dominant ideology embodies, and serves to legitimize and perpetuate, the interests of the dominant economic and social class.
Seminal Writers and their works-
- Marx and Engels -The German Ideology,
- The Hungarian thinker Georg Lukács,
- Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheime-.
- Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt (1982),
- Walter Benjamin,
- French Marxist Louis AlthusserPierre Macherey, in A Theory of Literary Production (1966, trans. 1978)
- Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci
- Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe-Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985)
- Raymond Williams
- Terry Eagleton-A leading theorist of Marxist criticism in England
- Fredric Jameson- The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (1981),
Marxist political theory views history as a constant struggle between these two classes. The bourgeoisie is the capitalist class that owns the wealth and the means of production. While the lower class who struggles and are depended on the bourgeoisie for income. Mostly this type of Bollywood movies are old movies where we see this struggle. The upper class is not ready to accept the lower class. They don't let their children marry the lower class and the struggles used to happen.
The recent movie of struggle between two classes is 2018 film Kedarnath. Here the struggle is between Hindu- Brahmin and Muslim couple which is perhaps the hot topic in India. But looking from the Marxist canon we see the same struggle the upper class not wishing their chlid to marry lower class who was local Muslim porter.
Ishq, 1997 movie also deals with the same theme of class issues. Children of two friends who belonged to the upper class wanted their children to marry so that their wealth remained with them but their children loved each other's friend who belonged to lower class. Parents tried to create problems among them but later they got married. Here also for the sake of wealth decide to go for same class marriage.
Looking at the literature, we find such themes are covered as a minor theme or can be read in various books. The Great Gatsby novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Great Gatsby is a story which begins with a narrator Nick Carraway talking about the market and his introduction which clarifies that he belongs to upper class society along with Tom Buchanan and her wife. The main Character is Jay Gatsby, his only aim is to win Daisy (upper class) to whom he couldn't marry. So he gets rich in order to win her, she is also in love with her. But he is judged on his dressing and living a fake life. When he died no one visited his funeral from the Buchanan family which shows that however a person struggles to be in the upper class, aristocratic society will never accept them and women like Daisy might fall in love but will never get ready to marry living their respectable way of life.
Marxism says that society involves a struggle between the upper and lower class, which is in essence what Gatsby is struggling against, as he fights to be accepted as upper class for once and all, ridding himself of his more humble origins. The Marxist idea that life is a continuous struggle between the bourgeois and the proletariat
Richardson’s Pamela is also about a relation between two different classes. Panama is a proletarian. In the novel, Mr. B, upper class, falls in love with Pamela and being rich he feels his right on Pamela. He kidnaps her, tries to abuse her. In the end they get married as it was to Mr. B . We feel as if Pamela has lost her individuality.
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children contains all the aspects of India. We also have a character Joseph D'Costa, Mary Pereira's sweetheart and he is a Marxist. His love Mary Pereira is a nurse, he influences Pereira to change the children in the hospital, poor child to rich family so that that the imbalance of capital, wealth in the society can be balanced.
I hope this blog is useful. Thanks for visiting.
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