In the 'real world' Marxism might be readily confused with Communism, and spoken about in hushed tones ...

In our world as Literature students, Marxist critical theory is a different beast entirely - a school of literary interpretation which is really useful for AO5.

A quick reminder of the Assessment Objective:

Here are the essentials for ambitious students.

Marxism is devoted to achieving the utopian ‘classless’ society. Because both are fundamentally interested in equality, you’ll find similarities in approach between Marxist and Feminist literary criticisms, even if those textual interpretations vary.

Although not literary critics themselves, Marx (and Engels) wrote important political works exposing how capitalism exploits one class for the benefit of another. (The Communist Manifesto (1848) is a very important work and also well under 100 pages ... hint, hint).

They contend that in a capitalist society, workers are ‘alienated’, demotivated, and deskilled, when they perform mundane repetitive tasks which are only a small part of the production process (think of someone on a production line). Ultimately, it's dehumanising: many become little better than machines, they say, whilst others live off the fruits of their labours without having to work at all. Marxists believe that periodic revolution is inevitable, when the working classes wake up and 'throw off their chains'.

Where does art and literature come in? Some Marxist critics (the Russian Formalists, like Victor Shklovsky, suggest that art SHOULD be difficult, to ‘wake us up’ and make us think about our lives, rather than living most of them on ‘automatic pilot’.

But wake up to what?

In the same way that Feminist critics believe literature supports a patriarchal worldview, Marxist critics contend that the ‘superstructure’ (art, literature, law, religion) props up a class system which enables inequality and discourages/prevents social mobility. Leading Marxist critics like Terry Eagleton highlight the importance of class in the production of a text, not least because classes within society have their own codes of vocabulary, grammar, etc. Further, any text is reflective of the author’s social class, and the relative historical positions of the classes when the text was written. Think, for example, about the fact that for large parts of history the lower classes were not just illiterate but had no leisure time to write. Or that in times of social unrest, art often steps in with examples of people who upset or challenge the existing social having very unhappy endings!

Some buzzwords for you: world-view; class outlook; social control; hierarchy; social mobility; labour; class struggle

So, how do Marxist literary critics ‘interpret’ texts?

They look at a text through a prism which highlights the obvious and hidden class factors in the text itself. They factor in how, when, and by whom the text was written. It’s also important to them to consider the class factors in which the text is ‘consumed’, i.e. read.

They might:

- reduce the text to some sort of analogy about class struggle

- look for ways in which texts expose class inequality, or work as part of the superstructure to perpetuate the system, encouraging or discouraging various behaviours

- point out how the class of the writer affects what is written and how it is written

- consider how changes in society over time affect how people view and interpret texts

FURTHER READING: the most accessible source I have come across is:

Peter Barry, Beginning Theory (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2009) which I used to inform this piece.

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About Abel Guerrero: I'm the 'upstart' in Upstart Tuition. I qualified as a teacher in 2013, and worked in the classroom until December 2024, when I decided my interests and skills were better fulfilled by 1-2-1 and small group tuition, resources, and courses. Whilst I'm on a mission to help you smash your exams, I feel I should warn you in advance that I am also trying to make you fall in love with literature. It's the best subject for learning about who we are, about the world about us, and how to navigate it.

I specialise in Shakespeare, poetry, and the Victorian / Dystopian literary genres. If I'm not reading, I'll probably be trying to grow chillies, with varying degrees of success. 🌶️

Need help? you can book a free, no-obligation chat with me via this link. Let's get together and discuss how I can help you.

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