Marxist literary theory can be used to explain many things within Hamlet, such as why Ophelia was given a proper christian burial even if she had  committed a great sin by committing suicide, as explained in our academic article, and it can be applied to many other moments such as Hamlet’s interaction with the gravedigger and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s death. The scene where Hamlet is interacting with the gravedigger is quite noteworthy because  it is one of the few scenes where Hamlet interacts with someone who is not a part of the court of Denmark or directly a servant to the crown. In this scene Hamlet finally meets someone who can best him in the art of speaking in riddles and that always leaves everyone else one or two steps behind, and normal class relations are thrown aside as the gravedigger is shown to be wiser and more articulate than Hamlet, and it is obvious that he is in control of the conversation the entire time.  In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and many other servants, are killed, not directly by their own wrongdoing but because they were simply following orders given out to them by their superiors. Hamlet commands their death and reacts to the announcement that England has followed through with his orders with very little remorse, showing how little he thought of those in lower socioeconomic classes. This scene also brings up the very interesting ethical question of whether the working class is wrong for following the instructions of the ruling class without questioning them, or if the fault solely lies on those who gave the instructions.

When considering Marxist literary theory it is also important to consider the background and class of the author and the historical time period in which they were writing. In Shakespeare’s case, while much of his life is still a mystery, it is known that his father was a public official and that he received a secondary school education, and then later in life he came to be a successful playwright and actor. It is very interesting that Shakespeare wrote for the majority about kings, queens, and noblemen, he himself was very var from being one, and only came to be in close contact with the ruling class later on when he was part of the King’s Men theater company. It is also amazing that he was able to write so elegantly, yet he never had any higher education of any kind, and this fact has led some scholars to believe that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays and sonnets.

Specters of Horatio- Hamlet and Marxist Literary Theory

Article Summary:

This article focuses on Horatio as a just character and as s trustworthy storyteller by examining Horatio’s social status. By concentrating directly on class and the dynamics of social status, this article uses Marxist literary theory to provide a close reading of Hamlet. The Author discusses how Horatio is the middle ground between more common people like Marcellus, a guard, or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are servants to the crown, and the noble class, who command him. Horatio is a bit of a mystery and not much is known about his background except that he is Hamlet’s peer from Wittenberg and that he is potentially a scholar of sorts, but it is suggested that Horatio would not hold the position he does if not for Hamlet favoring and trusting him. Thus Horatio is in the odd position of being on the periphery of both the servant class and the noble class, and this position lets him be a disinterested observer of the tragedy that unfolds, and he is lucky enough to not become a victim of it, unlike Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. This position becomes very important at the end of the play, where Hamlet delegates Horatio with recounting the tragedy to the rest of the world, and it is heavily implied that Horatio does this by holding a play in the town center. The author’s main point is that Horatio’s unique social status within the palace makes him the most just and least biased character in the play.

Besides the main argument about Horatio, the author uses a Marxist lens to point out other interesting happenings in the play, such as Ophelia’s burial. It is explicitly stated within this scene that if Ophelia had not been born of nobility, she would not have received  a proper christian burial, and would not have had the opportunity to go to heaven.

Marxism can be widely applied to real world events, both past and present. Marx believed that all of recorded history was little more that a series of class struggles, with conflict arising because of flaws in the dominant economic system of the time. He believed history followed the pattern laid out by Hegel: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. In each socioeconomic epoch, one class (the thesis) would create an opposing force (antithesis), and they would struggle until one changed or overthrew the other (synthesis). The new system created would in turn created another thesis and the cycle would begin anew. In this way, Marx traced societies progress through various economic systems, from slavery to feudalism to capitalism. Marx believed that a society would transition from capitalism to communism once the proletariat achieved class consciousness and overthrew the bourgeoisie (communism was considered an ideal economic system as it is completely classless and thus would end the cycle of class struggle, with all men finally being equal). While country or world scale revolution has been rare, even the smaller struggles between the powerful and the subjugated can be considered emblematic of the shortcomings of capitalist society under Marxism, and human history is rife with such examples.

Struggles between the oppressors and the oppressed were the defining characteristics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The late 1800s and early 1900s were the prime years of worker union activity in America, which involved protesting, striking, and rioting against rich company owners who paid wages that were too low and provided working environments that were too dangerous and demanding. The sentiments these unionizers were expressing echo Marxist critiques of capitalism, emphasizing the injustice of the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto that “the working class… who live only so long as they can find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital… becomes an appendage of the machine.”

Similarly, human rights movements can be considered  examples of Marxist theory. These happened in waves, with the most notable one occurring in the sixties. During this time, counterculture was on the rise. Many groups of marginalized people banded together to fight for their liberties. Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks were perhaps some of the most prominent figures associated with the movements of the time, but there were many others fighting for their rights as well. Marsha P Johnson, for example, was a trans woman who was a key figure in the Stonewall riots that led to the emancipation of the LGBTQ community. Betty Friedan was a feminist and writer often credited for sparking the second-wave feminist movement of the sixties. This time period is defined by its human rights movements. The very concept of rising up against oppressors after centuries of struggling gets at the very core of what Marxism is about. Their stand against the powerful didn’t necessarily end with the rebels seizing the means of production and forming a new society based on principles of equality, but the essence of the struggles between socioeconomic groups are in line with key Marxist ideals.

In other parts of the world, there are examples such as the French Revolution or the Haitian Revolution, both of which occurred prior to the creation of Marxism. Marx was fascinated by such uprising (especially the socialist thinking which spread in France after the French Revolution) and had such event in mind when creating his theories.  The French Revolution was triggered when high taxes and bad harvests forced hordes of common people into starvation and drew the poor further into poverty. After years of fighting and turmoil, the monarchy was overthrown and its prominent members were beheaded.

The Haitian Revolution was in response to slavery, racial oppression, and colonialism in Saint Domingue (present day Haiti). A group of slaves rose up against their French oppressors, overthrew them, and established a non-white sovereign nation. This uprising became known as one of the largest and most successful slave uprisings in history.

In the present day, there are five countries that currently use the communist system: China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. Take China as an example. The Chinese Communist Revolution lasted from 1941 to 1945 and was led by Mao Zedong, who directed the members of the Communist Party against the Nationalists. The people of China felt that their country was fragmented and that their government, led by Nationalist Chiang Kaishek, was weak and didn’t care for the common people. They believed that the Confucian ideals, which placed a huge importance on conformity to social structure, were ruining China. Anti-imperialist sentiment had spread throughout the common people. The idea of Marxism inspired the formation of the Communist Party, and later the Communist Revolution.

There are a tremendous amount of other examples of class struggles such as these throughout history and throughout the world. The ones listed, obviously, are only a few.

 

Marxist Literary Criticism generally has little in common with Structuralism. Structuralism generally steers away from historical and ideological content, both of which are major foci of Marxism. Marxist critics see all works of literature as inherently ideological and political in nature. The major exception is Russian Formalism, which, as the name suggests, does have a lot in common with Formalism. In a Marxist interpretation of Structuralism, literary form is analyzed for ideological for meaning. For example, writing with a very rigid structure, like iambic pentameter can be seen as a reflection as reflection of rigid social hierarchy. Postructuralism generally does not have much in common with Marxist analysis because Marxists tend to believe writing does have a fixed meaning.

Marxism is similar in analytical style to Gender Theory, Queer Theory, and Ethnic Studies. All focus of the relationship between groups with varying amounts of power, in the case of Marxism the upper and lower classes, in the case of Gender Theory men, women, and non-binary people, in the case of Queer Theory, normative ideas of sexual identity and gender, and queered conceptions thereof, and in the case of Postcolonial Criticism the colonizers versus the colonized. All these theories deal with the division of power and oppression. Marxism overlaps with the other theories mentioned because someone who is oppressed under a lens of Gender, Queer or Ethnic Studies is often also oppressed economically. Marxism however, tends to draw the line at the economic, not delving very deep into the systems of power investigated by the other theories mentioned.

Of all branches of literary criticism, New Historicism is perhaps most closely linked with Marxism. Both believe that all acts of expression are embedded in the material conditions of a culture, and pay attention to the economic and social realities surrounding a piece of literature and the ideology it overtly or covertly espouses.

Ecocriticism does not have much overlap with Marxism, besides the fact that they are both interested in the alienation felt by the common man a result of mechanization the rise of the industrial economy.

Psychoanalysis, at the level of the individual is not generally part of Marxist Criticism. However, Marxist scholars, most notably  Fredrick Emerson, applied the ideas of psychoanalysis to entire classes of people. They deal in psychoanalytic terms with a political and class unconsciousness, consciousness, and subconsciousness.

The constraints of Marxist theory are that it solely analyzes ideas and examples of class struggles, wealth disparities, and worker disenfranchisement. While these are very important topics and are definitely present in many works of literature, it is also a narrow lens through which to analyze something. There are an unfathomable number of other topics that are often present in narratives which have nothing to do with Marxist ideas, and simply looking for textual evidence that could tie Marxism in with the story and not paying attention to other interpretations narrows the meaning of a piece of literature considerably. For example, if one were to read Hamlet and only apply a Marxist approach, many themes such as female objectification, insanity, and perversion of the natural order would be missed. Only thinking about a text from one perspective would mean giving up a great deal of understanding of that text.

Additionally, the characters of many narratives cannot be distinctly divided into categories like the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This mirrors many societies around the world, where there are definitely an upper and lower class, but there are also a massive amount of people who fit somewhere in the middle, such as the middle class. Marx thought of the middle class as a stepping stone for members of society to either become successful and join the bourgeoisie, or fail and join the proletariat. However, reality is nowhere as neat and easily categorized as Marxist theory makes it out to be. There can be a lot of grey area with regards to socioeconomic classes and the relationships between them, especially when human beings are as sloppy and irrational as they are.

Marxism originated with the German philosopher and economist Karl Marx (1818 – 1883). He was influenced by the philosophical works of those like Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel (1770- 1831) and the socialist thinking produced by the French Revolution. Marx collaborated with political economist Friedrich Engels (1820 – 1895) and wrote three books on which Marxist ideology is based: The Communist Manifesto, Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, and Das Kapital. Marxism describes history as a series of class struggles, deriving from the underlying economic conditions of society (called the Base). The Superstructure (culture, politics, society, art, literature, etc.) arises directly from this Base, making Marxism a theory of economic determinism. Throughout history a rising up of the lower class has moved society from Slavery, to Feudalism, to Capitalism, which Marx believes will in turn give way to Communism. Marxism is especially focused on the flaws of Capitalism, believing it divides society into two classes: the ruling class (or bourgeoisie) who own the means of production, and the working class (or proletariat) who labor for wages and are oppressed by the bourgeoisie. Marxism holds that the ideal society is completely classless, with the means of production being collectively owned. To achieve this, the proletariat must achieve class consciousness (i.e. realize they are being oppressed by the Capitalist economic system) and overthrow the bourgeoisie. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx calls for action with the famous phrase: “Workers of the world, unite!”

Marx and Engels, it should be noted, did not explicitly conceive of Marxism as a method of literary analysis, but rather as a political, social, and economic theory. However, it did not take long for Marxist ideology and principles to be applied to literary analysis. One of the first to do so was the Hungarian Georg Lukacs (1885 – 1971), pioneering the branch of Marxist Literary Criticism known as Reflectionism or Vulgar Marxism. Reflectionism gets its name from the fact that it sees literature as purely a reflection of the socioeconomic context in which it was created. This view means that art and literature have little to no impact on society, that they have little power to work as propaganda or to inspire revolution. Literature becomes a useful tool through which to analyze the circumstances surrounding its creation but little else.

To some degree, Vulgar Marxism is  similar to Leninist Marxism. As the name suggests, Leninist Marxist Literary Theory was devised by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin believed that the state should have direct control over literature (and indeed direct control over nearly everything). In the Soviet Union, he mandated that literature needed to be a direct reflection of the ideology of the State. He believed that literature was grounded in the class position of the author.  He believed not so much that literature could not affect an ideological change, but that it should not, banning literature which did not directly align with the interests of the State. Leninist Marxism espoused the tenets of Reflectionism, and when literature seemed not to fit this narrow definition, it was simply not deemed literature and removed.

Among underground writers in the Soviet Union, an alternate interpretation of Marxist Literary Theory arose, called Engelsian Marxism, associated with Russian Formalist Literature. Adherents of this form of criticism believed literature should be more than state propaganda. They focused on applying typically formalist elements of literary analysis to Marxism, and were especially interested in the concept of defamiliarization. Defamiliarization is the process through which a writer can make the ordinary seem new, making the reader look at something in an unfamiliar way.

Another and more recent influential figure was Louis Althusser (1918 – 1990). He believed that while the Base has a significant influence on literature, literature has some degree of relative autonomy. Althusser was especially fascinated with the concept of interpellation. Interpellation is the mechanism through which the bourgeoisie oppress the working class indirectly. The proletariat believe they can think freely but are manipulated without their knowledge by the ruling class through (among other means) literature. The hidden and underlying pro-ruling class messages in literature, force the working class to internalize bourgeoisie ideology. He also believed that more subversive messages could be spread via literature, and that the working class could develop its own culture, leading to revolution. Althusser’s contributions to the field are often referred to as Production Theory.

Other important influences on Marxist Literary Criticism include Fredrick Emerson (1934 – present) and Terry Eagleton (1943 – present). Emerson connected Marxist analysis to contemporary literary theories, bringing in and criticizing elements of postmodernism and placing an emphasis on a political unconscious, drawing from psychoanalysis. Eagleton is a prominent critic of postmodernism and has also received widespread recognition for the work he has done with Marxist Criticism. His book Marxism and Literary Criticism explored the history and current incarnations of the field. Marxist analysis is an ever evolving field which will no doubt continue to shape the way we conceptualize literature.

For more on Marxist philosophy and the basic tenets of Marxist Literary Theory see the first blog post.

 

Marxist Literary Theory originated from the philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (for more on the origins of Marxist Literary Theory see the next blog post). To understand Marxist criticism, one should have a rough idea of Marxist philosophy. Marxism is grounded to a large degree in determinism. Marx thought of people and literature as a product of their socioeconomic environment. According to Marx, reality is entirely material and has no spiritual dimension, meaning that we are who we are not because of some divine essence or inherent nature, we are merely the product of our cultural, social, political, and economic surroundings. Marx thought of economic conditions (the means of production and distribution of wealth and resources) as the Base of a society. It is from this Base that everything else, the Superstructure, stems. The Superstructure includes society, culture, arts, politics and (importantly) literature.

The fact that literature is part of the Superstructure has led Marxist literary thought in two main directions. The earliest, called reflectionism, holds that since the Superstructure is necessarily derivative of the Base, all literature is merely a reflection of a society’s consciousness. From this perspective, literature can be a useful tool to probe at the mindsets and ideologies present within a society and to get down to the flaws at its economic Base. Others argue that while the Base generally informs the Superstructure, things like philosophy and literature can affect societal change, eventually even altering the Base. This means assuming that literature has some degree of relative autonomy. Using this type of Marxist lens, the power of the ruling class can be divided into two types. The first is repressive structures, which are  tangible and literally oppress (like a court of law or a prison). The other is the State ideological apparatus (think of political parties, churches, literature, etc.) which make the oppressed feel they can think freely while actually indoctrinating them in ruling class ideology. This ploy which gives the masses the impression of free will is called interpellation. Under this second branch of Marxist Critique, literature can become a mechanism to alter class ideology. This means literature can be used as a tool to keep the lower classes in check, but since literature is assumed to have some freedom from the Base, it can also be used to subvert ruling class ideology and elicit social change (and thereby eventual economic change).

Common to all schools of Marxist Criticism is an examination of class conflict. Marx saw history as the product of class conflict, writing, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (The Communist Manifesto, 8). Classes compete for economic, social, and political advantage in a struggle that is the result of underlying flaws in the dominant economic structure of the time. Each socioeconomic system naturally arises from the conflict created by the previous one, and just as naturally collapses under its own inherent shortcomings. The Marxist ideal is a completely classless society in which all have equal access to food, education, medicine, etc. Thus Marxist Literary Criticism focuses on the division of wealth and conflict between social classes. Marxist Criticism seeks to understand a text in historical terms, to note how a piece of literature reflects the social, political, and economic circumstances under which it was created (here the class of the author and the society they lived in must be considered). Marxist Literary Criticism examines how literary depictions of the powerful and the powerless differ, and why the powerful are in power in the first place. A key question is whether a text perpetuates ruling class ideology, subverts it, or both.

Besides the ever present motif of class conflict, Marxist Literary Criticism  has a number of other common features. Prominent among these is the examination of commodification in a text. Commodification occurs when things are valued not for their utility but for the ability to impress others or their exchange value. Under a capitalist economic system, when wage labor is the standard, workers themselves become commodities, valued not as people but solely for their ability to increase capital. The extent to which literature represents commodification is used by Marxist critics to examine the ideology of the society in which the text was created and its economic Base.

These basic tenets of Marxist theory can be used to analyze any work of literature. Take as an example Yvonne Shafer’s Marxist analysis of Ibsen’s A Doll House. He analyses the play in economic terms, noting that Nora is economically enslaved to Torvald and seeks to increase personal freedom via the acquisition of wealth. Nora’s relation to her husband is defined in economic terms and at first she sees the world and her own future in mostly economic terms. By the end of the play, after becoming acutely aware of her subjugation, she learns, in Shafer’s words, “financial enslavement is symptomatic of other forms of enslavement… and money is no guarantee of happiness.” Nora’s leaving becomes a clear comment on the failings of her socioeconomic surroundings and “the conclusion… was a challenge to the economic superstructure that had controlled and excluded the Noras of the word by manipulating their economic status and by extension, their conscious estimation of themselves and their place in society.” Marxist analysis is not limited to works of high literature, as shown in this article about the authoritarian undercurrents in Thomas the Tank Engine or this Marxist prediction of the next season of Game of Thrones.

Whatever the subject, Marxist analysis sees economic conditions as the foundation of society and literature, and uses literature to explore these basic economic conditions, the ideologies formed around these conditions, and the class conflict created.