Marxism and Marxist theory of criticism:

- Introduced by Karl Marx

- “vulgar Marxism” – early period of Marxist literary criticism (lit texts are one register of the superstructure
with an economic base)
- Lit texts are reflections of the economic base rather than the social institutions they originate from
- Marxism: matter precedes consciousness
- We create ideas, ideas do not create us.
- Human history -> dialectical forces, material forces, (have’s and have not’s)
- Industrial revolution  capitalists
- Have’s – 10-20% Have NOT’S – 80%
- 20% CONTROL THE REST 80%
- “religion is the heart of the heartless, soul of the soulless, and sigh of the oppressed. It’s the opium of
masses”
- Alienation: internalized acceptance of the dominated state
- Communism is the highest form of Marxism
- Consumerism favors capitalists
- Tarry Eagleton: Wuthering Heights (Heathcliffe and the great hunger)
- Criteria of critiquing literature through Marxist lens:
Literary works are consequences of economic and ideological factors that are specific to that time
period.
1. What is the role of class in the said literary work?
2. How do the protagonists fight against oppression?
3. Does the work advocate for Marxist values or does it oppose them?
4. How is oppression discussed in the work, are impending issues in society brushed aside or
condemned?
5. Are there any proposed idealistic answers to the issues faced in the literary work?

LOUIS ALTHUSSER

Algerian-French Marxist philosopher.

- He hates Hegel lol

- He’s against terms like “social system” because they indicate a structure with a center that determines the
form of all its sources
- He believes in “social formation”
- Elements of this social formation are not treated as reflections of one (economic for Marxists) but are said
to have relative autonomy and are ultimately determined by the economic level only in the last instance
(derived from Engels)
- Art between ideology and scientific knowledge (in A Letter On Art)
- Art makes us see, in a distanced way, the ideology from which it is born, in which it bathes, from which it
detaches itself and to which it alludes.

IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUSES

- Published in 1970
- Presents two theses: one positive and one negative
- A central thesis
- Thesis 1: Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.
. ideologies (religious, legal, political, ethical) are myths of “primitive society”
. they do not correspond to reality (illusion)
. however they do allude to reality
. they need to be interpreted to discover the reality
 Mechanistic: 18th century, religious
 Hermeneutic: early Church fathers, revived by Feuerbach
- In ideology, men represent their real conditions of existence to themselves in an imaginary form.
- WHY?
- Mechanistics believed Priests and Despots to be responsible; they forged “beautiful lies”; to make men
obey them in the name of obeying God; small number of men exploited and dominated masses by
falsified representation of the world in order to enslave their minds.
- Hermenuetics answered based on Feuerbach (copied word to word by Marx in his Early Works);
“profound” but not really; material alienation is the cause; in Jewish Question, Marx defends the
Feuerbachian idea that men alienate themselves.
- Althusser focused on the relation of individuals to their conditions of existence. He believed they were at
the center of every ideology.
- Thesis 2: Ideology has a material existence

. ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices. Their existence is material.

. it’s not just a set of ideas; it’s manifested through actions and decisions of the “subjects”

. by believing in an ideology, an individual turns into a subject. His actions, attitude, behavior must
be in accordance to that ideology then. Otherwise they’re considered inconsistent and cynical.

. Pascal: kneel down, move your lips in prayer and you will believe (inverts the order of things)

. “his ideas are his material actions inserted into material practices governed by material rituals
which are themselves defined by material ideological apparatus from which derive the ideas of
that subject”

 “inverted presentation” of things; no inversion at all; certain notions have disappeared,

some survived and some were new additions:
 Disappeared: ideas
 Survived: subject, consciousness, belief, actions
 New additions: practices, rituals, ideological apparatus
- Conjoint theses:
1. There is no practice except by and in an ideology
2. There is no ideology except by the subject and for subjects
- CENTRAL THESES: IDEOLOGY INTERPELLATES INDIVIDUALS AS SUBJECTS
- Distinction between individual and subject
- Ideological turns individual into subject
 - Police hailing an individual as “Hey, you there!” As he turns around to respond, he becomes a subject as
he thinks the hail was actually addressed to him.
- Individual is “always-already” a subject.
- Christianity: one supreme subject and several ordinary subjects
- Gender behavior -> interpellation.
- Subjects aren’t forced to accept the values and beliefs; it is continuously presented to them until it
becomes “common sense”
- They don’t even realize that they’re accepting external values
- Ideal form of interpellation: when individuals don’t even know they’re being interpellated.

ISA AND RSA

- State: repressive apparatus; enables ruling class to continue with their domination on working class
- State power and State apparatus are different. Latter survives even if former is ousted.
- Example of Bolshevik revolution in 1917
. state power was seized by the peasantry and proletariat alliance, state apparatus survived.
- In Marxist theory, State apparatus is the govt., administrations, army, police, courts, prisons, etc
- Those make up the RSAs (Repressive State Apparatuses)
- They’re sued by ruling class to dominate the working class
- Violent and coercive means
- Althusser added the ISAs (Ideological State Apparatuses)(2006)
- Certain number of realities that form “distinct and specialized institutions”
1. The religious ISA
2. The educational ISA
3. The family ISA
4. The legal ISA
5. The trade union ISA
6. The political ISA
7. The communication ISA
8. The cultural IS
- Differences between ISA and RSA:
a. If there is one RSA that is the State, there is a “plurality of ISAs”
b. RSA belongs to the public domain but ISA belongs to the private
c. RSA functions through violence; law and court after; and at last incarceration and police or even army.
d. RSA functions as a unified entity unlike ISA which is diverse in nature and plural in function.
e. RSA: violence first, ideology secondarily; ISA: ideology primarily, repression secondarily.
 CLASS NOTES:
Althusser was a Marxist, strongly infulenced by structuralism, even though both the philosophies are at odds with each
other. The essay under study, 'Ideology and ISA', explains the critical relationship between how the dominant ideology of
capitalism works on individuals.

Althusser explains two major apparatuses that are used by modern capitalist states to exercise power, control and
authority. The first is what Althusser calls the RSA. According to Althusser, RSA comprises of military, police, and the
criminal justice system and even the executive branch. These components enforce control directly. Through the RSA, the
state uses direct physical power to control individuals (citizens). This is an overt mechanism of ensuring power, control,
domination, and exploitation.

His main aim is to analyze ISA. He says that it is through ISA that the modern capitalist state exercises greater control.
According to Althusser, ISA comprises of various institutions like religion, education, family, media, sports, etc. These
institutions generate ideologies which we as individuals internalize and act in accordance with. The sole purpose to remain
under subordination to the dominant ideology of the capitalist state. As a result, individuals turn into subjects and the
status quo of domination, exploitation, inequality, and oppression is maintained. Althusser goes on to say that this
ideological working/mechanism is at the heart of the modern state. It tries to liquidate any critical consciousness which
could have heart of change/ revolution.

For Althusser, the state , especially the modern state, is a kind of a governmental formation that emerges with capitalism.
The state is determined by the capitalist mode of production. In fact, the state is formed to protect the interests of
capitalism. Marxists then explain that modern

liberal democracy offers the perfect environment for capitalism to thrive. But all this would not have been possible without
the workings of the dominant ideology of the state (capitalist ideology ). Because an illusion is created that there is equality
and emancipation. But in reality, the state with its capitalist ideology subtly hides economic inequality and exploitation.
Althusser makes the argument that ideology is a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real
conditions of existence. He says it so because he believes, like all Marxists , that the material alienation of real conditions
compels people to form representations that distance them from real conditions.

To put it simply, the material aspects of capitalism are themselves alienating. People try to find solace in something. So they
make up illusory perspectives on life by thinking everything is quite well which alienates them further from their real
conditions. Althusser goes on to say that a new kind of belief system emerges where there is only illusion but yet we are let
into believing that. We actually internalize and take as ultimate truth the various ideologies that the different institutions
which the ISAs create. Under the influence of ISA, we are compelled to misrecognize or misrepresent our own selves as
unalienated subjects in capitalism.

Since Althusser was a structuralist marxist and in this essay, he uses both structuralist and marxist methodology to
understand the workings of ideology. He distinguishes between ideologies and ideology. Ideologies are mostly historical in
nature. Similarly ideology in its origins is structural in nature. Althusser links the structure of ideology to the idea of
unconcious as put forward by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The structure of ideology is like the unconcious. While the
content of the ideology may vary, the form always remains the same. Indeed, Althusser says that ideology operates
unconsciously. For Althusser, ideology then is the imaginary/represented version of the stories we tell ourselves about our
relationship to the real world. So the real world becomes not something that is objective but a product of one relations to it
and of the ideological representations we make to it. In more Marxist terms, ideology 'presents people with representation
of their relations to means of production rather than with representation of the relations to the products. Althusser also say
that ideology has a material existence and it depends on the notion of the subject. There is no practice except by and in
ideology, which in other words means that belief systems depend on individuals believing in and acting on these thoughts,
who then become subjects. The main function is to constitute concrete individuals as subjects. In simpler words, it is the
main function of ideology. And when people become subjects, they believe in the various ideologies propagated by in
sitittution. "Ideology Interpellates individuals as subjects... ". Ideology from the same word as 'appalation' literally meaning
' name.' Interpellation is a sort of 'hailing' . Althusser's argument is directly useful in literary studies because it enables us to
talk about how a literary text, as a subset of transformation or production of ideology or specific ideologies also constitutes
us as subjects and speaks to us directly. So, all texts interpellate readers by some mechanisms. All texts create subject-
positions for readers whether that is obvious or not.