Marxist Lens

The Aristocracy

• The Aristocracy was the class with the most amount of political power in society
• These were people who built up their power through the acquisition of land and control over political power.
• Considering a feudal system this would be the Kings and Queens and other noble leaders
• Today an example of someone who is a part Aristocracy would Queen Elizabeth II of England

Aristocracy

The Bourgeoisie

• The bourgeoisie, also known as capitalists, are the owners of businesses, enterprises, and capital
• This group of people received special treatment and could gain control over the government, media, and culture
• Just being wealthy did not make on part of the bourgeoisie, one had to make wealth from employment and the exploitation of labor.
• These people tended to have the most power socially & economically.
• An example of someone who would be considered to be part of the Bourgeoisie today would be Elon Musk

Bourgeoisie

The Proletariat

• The proletariat, or working class, would be the laborers who worked for larger companies.
• These people had to find employment in order to survive and have a sustainable income to support themselves and their families.
• This created a social relationship of Employer to Laborer and a connection between the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat.
• These people had the least amount of power of any social class.
• Today any of us workers could be considered to be part of the Proletariat

Proletariat

What role does the social class play on the character throughout the work?

or

How does the author represent different classes and struggles in the work?

Class

• the Great Gatsby. The role of class and society played a major role in F. Scott Fitzgerald's creation of the book.
• From the beginning the idea of 3 different classes were presented; there was the
• wealthy elite, the newly rich, and the working class.
• It effect every character from The main character Jay Gatsby to even smaller characters such as Myrtle Wilson.
• Myrtle had an affair with Tom Buchanan, a character in a higher social class.
• She did this in an attempt to move up a social class.
• Myrtle then gets run over by a car and killed. This symbolizes the difficulty of moving at of a social class and moving to a higher one in the early 1900s.

How does the novel handle oppression?

or

Are social conflicts blamed on someone or something, or is it ignored entirely?

Social Conflict

• In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a character named Atticus Finch portrays a Lawyer in Alabama who defends and African American named Tom Robinson.
• Tom was accused of Raping Mayella Ewell and put on trail.
• There was a decent amount of evidence, but none of it directly pointed to Tom.
• Just because he was African American, the Jury firmly believed he was guilty; however, if it was the same cause with a white person there would not be enough evidence to convict him.
• This book strongly suggest the beliefs present at that time by showing how Atticus lost many of his friends and was assaulted at one point of the book just for defending an African American.
• The novel displays this oppression clearly by showing society views on the matter.

Does this work present a utopian society as a solution to an issue encountered in the work?

Utopian

Vision

• Lord of the Flies by William Golding presents the ideals of society on a group of boys who crash land on an island. Starting out freely they then begin to formulate their own ideas of government and how it should be run.
• Many issues are encountered in the book such as what type of leadership would work best and how or if the kids would survive.
• The idea of the island being a Utopia from the beginning is present .
• It was a new environment free of war and struggles. However this "solution" of a utopia soon failed as the boys made their own society with social classes.
• The boys enjoyment soon failed with the emergence of a small scale society.
• Thus showing that differing social classes could be a bad thing and a downfall to a utopian society

How does a character either try to or succeed in overcoming class struggles or oppression through the work?

Try it with George Orwell's 1984!

Oppression

• In the book 1984 by George Orwell the main character, Winston Smith, tries to overcome the oppression of Oceania, the fictional setting of the novel.
• Big Brother, the figurehead of government, constantly tries to deindividualize the public and oppress the public's thoughts and beliefs. The government was a totalitarian.
• The government had control over what people thought, did, and who they married.
• Winston tries to overcome this by perusing in a relationship with Julia, someone other than his wife and by writing his beliefs in his journal
• He wished for the demise of the government by repetitively writing "Down with Big Brother..."

Works Cited

• Delahoyde, Michael. “Marxism.” Marxist Criticism, Washington State University, public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/marxist.crit.html.

• “Marx's Theory of Social Class and Class Structure.” Marx on Social Class, University of Regina, 28 Sept. 1999, uregina.ca/~gingrich/s28f99.htm.

• Purdue Writing Lab. “Marxist Criticism // Purdue Writing Lab.” Purdue Writing Lab, owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schools_of_criticism/marxist_criticism.html.

Works Cited