The Literary Criticism Web

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness."

                                            -- Karl Marx, Critique of Political Economy

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

                                            --Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto

The Marxist theory of social history initially emerged the cauldron of social consciousness in the nineteenth century. It was the product of a period of particularly turbulent social change fueled by new sciences, new technologies and new political institutions. The Marxist analysis of history seeks to articulate both its unifying plot and to evaluate the relationship of forces shaping that plot.

Central to the Marxist plotting of history is the economic struggle for power between the ruling class and the working class, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. These groups are oppositional and yet they work together to produce the material needs of society. The means by which these groups ironically work together define the mode of production of society. Over time, out of the give-and-take between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the mode of production changes: society evolves. From the social dialectic of class struggle, for example, tribalism gives way to feudalism gives way to capitalism. The essential values and attitudes defining the social relations of a period's mode of production comprise the base of society. The institutions and conventions of a culture -- its superstructure -- both express and promote the ideology of the base. The ideology of society works to maintain the status quo of social relations and thus the dominance of the ruling class.

As Marxist theory has been applied to the understanding of literature, it has provided an often potent means of assessing the social significance of the literary text. The potency of Marxist literary theory is perhaps reflected in its resurgence in the late twentieth century even when the influence of Marxist politics has waned.

The Marxist response to literature begins with the recognition that literature is one artistic component of the superstructure of a society. As such, it provides a reflection of the forces shaping and maintain the ideology of culture. In the past this definition of the place of literature within culture led to the rather simplistic assessment of literature as explicitly or implicitly propaganda either contributing to the status quo or to the imperative for social change. However, more recent critical theorists, like Terry Eagleton and Fredric Jameson, have seen in literature a more complex reflection of society. Literature is not a static mirror image of culture; rather it is itself a contributing force to the social dialectic of history. Moreover, it does not just reflect the hegemony of the ruling class; it also reflects the oppositional forces that counter that hegemony. It carries the vestigial traces of past modes of production and the germs of the future modes of production.

Marxist Critical Assumptions

Below is concise summary of some particular Marxist assumptions about social relations that can often provide useful entries into an analysis of literature:

updated 07/23/99