MARXIST

APPROAC
H
ANDAG GACUTNO
MATUGUINA ROBLE
SILAO YABO
MARXIST APPROACH

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was primarily a theorist and historian. After

examining social organization in a scientific way (thereby creating a
methodology for social science: political science), he perceived human
history to have consisted of a series of struggles between classes--
between the oppressed and the oppressing.
MARXIST CRITICISM

According to Marxists, and to other scholars in fact, literature reflects those social
institutions out of which it emerges and is itself a social institution with a
particular ideological function. Literature reflects class struggle and materialism:
think how often the quest for wealth traditionally defines characters. So Marxists
generally view literature "not as works created in accordance with timeless artistic
criteria, but as 'products' of the economic and ideological determinants specific to
that era" (Abrams 149). Literature reflects an author's own class or analysis of
class relations, however piercing or shallow that analysis may be.
• What role does class play in the work; what is the author's analysis of
class relations?
• How do characters overcome oppression?
• In what ways does the work serve as propaganda for the status quo; or
does it try to undermine it?
• What does the work say about oppression; or are social conflicts
ignored or blamed elsewhere?
• Does the work propose some form of utopian vision as a solution to
the problems encountered in the work?
 INFLUENCE OF MARXIST THEORY IN
WRITERS
a) History As  Historical Materialism: The author hopes to show how all
human relations are at root a class struggle between oppressor and
oppressed, and/or a struggle for control of the means of production.  These
include "human relations" writ both large and small: both on a global and
political level (like war, the fall of Rome, the spread of Christianity etc) or
on a personal level (how two characters or a family relates to one another). 
Examples: Heart Of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, A Doll's House.
b) Writing As A Means of Controlling Ideology: Marxist theory suggests that if
hegemony is maintained through ideology, the oppressed must gain control of
their own ideology.  This is explicitly the argument presented by Virginia Woolf
in A Room Of One's Own; women will break the cycle of oppression by writing
their own stories and defining themselves as human, intelligent, equal etc.  This
theory also inspired writers of color both in the US and throughout the world, to
tell their own stories and redefine the cultural image of the Black man, the
Latino, the African etc.
 INFLUENCE OF MARXIST THEORY IN
READERS/CRITICS
a) The Work As Ideology: Simply put, Marxism argues that any work of art functions either
consciously or unconsciously as ideology; it does not define some eternal representation of
"Truth" so much as it represents the ideologies that serve to oppress or an attempt to rebel
against that oppression (see b, above).  When combined with a dose of Nietzsche, this way of
thinking about art will have a profound effect on so called "Post Modern" critical theories.
For example, under this model, a Marxist reading of Wordsworth's Romanticism as an
means through which the urban, middle to upper class English elite attempted to maintain
hegemony over the rural, agricultural peasant class; that is, "pastoralism" really masks
nothing more than the modern aristocracy or emerging urban middle class keeping control
over the peasant class, as it had always done.
b) As A Record Of Historical Relations:  A Marxist influenced reading of, say a
Jane Austen novel would be interested in the role of women as the oppressed and
the negotiation of romantic relations and marriage as deeply, if not entirely,
influenced by a struggle for domination or freedom.
A Feminist Marxist reading of Austen would see the novel's women as the
oppressed.  However, another approach might note that there are essentially no
representations of the working class in these or any other 18th century novels, so
that, just as Woolf points out that histories omitted women from history, Austen
omitted maids, servants and peasants.
EXAMPLES OF LITERARY WORK THAT COULD
USE MARXIST APPROACH

• Cinderella
• Things Fall Apart
• A Thousand Splendid Suns
• Beauty and the Beast
AUTHOR’S APPEAL TO READERS
THINGS FALL APART BY: CHINUA ACHEBE
AUTHOR APPEAL

• PATHOS- This refers to the author’s credibility.

• LOGOS- This refers to the facts/reasoning.
• ETHOS- This refers to the emotions, a literary text
evokes.
The story, Things Fall Apart, is about the life of Okonokwo. The author uses Ethos,
or emotional appeal in this story. This is because he skillfully narrated Okonokwo’s
life when he had a happy-go-lucky father who died, drowning in debts. Reading this
part in his life, makes you feel pity for him for he grew up as a child who never had a
proper father to raise him but then, the kind of father he became was quite
annoyingly terrible. He grew up to be violent to his wives and children. He grew up
full of hate and anger to anyone and everyone. He kept pushing people away and he
built walls that are impossible to break or climb. That’s why when in time of trying
to fight back the white men, no one stood with him. He felt alone and powerless and
it eventually led to his death.