1. Marxist theoryKarl marx 1818 1883

2. What is Marxism? Marxism is a philosophy of history. It is also aneconomic doctrine. Marxism is also a theory of revolution and the basic explanation forSocial life is based upon the conflict of interest. Just as Darwin discovered the law of development oforganic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history. (Engels,1884) By materialism, Marx meant that the engine that drives society is the economy.Consciousness is from the very beginning a socialproductAim of maxismAs you will hopefully all remember from history class,the aim of Marxism is to bring about a classless society, based on the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; it sees progress as coming about through the struggle for power between different social classes. I wont go through the entireCommunist ManifestoorDas Kapitalwith you, but only focus on those ideas and concepts that shape Marxist literary criticism. ~ Marx, reality is material, not spiritual. Our culture, he says, is not basedon sO:lle dlv~ne essence or the Platonic forms or on contemplation of timeless abstractIons.It IS not our philosophical or religious beliefs that make us who we are for,,:e are n,ot spiritual ~eings but socially constrncted ones. We are not products of divmedeSIgn but creatIOns of our own cultural and social circumstances.

materialismMaterialism"Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.

According to Marx, reality is material, not spiritualwe are not products of divine design but creation of our own cultural and social circumstancesthe material world will show us our reality---social groups, making all of our actions interrelated. By examining the relationships among socioeconomic classes and analyzing the super structure, we can achieve insight into ourselves and our society (84) Therefore, by analyzing the relationships in literature between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, as well as capitalism and Marxist theory readers can gain further insight into their consciousness and the society they live in.

Unlike other materialist philosophies, Marxism does not just seek tounderstandthe world, but wants tochangeit.Historical materialisma mass of people without organisation and without a consciousness of its own demands cannot make history, and nor can a "leader" who does not voice the aspirations of masses. The subjects of history are not the "forces of production" nor the "laws of history," but instead people make history always acting under certain material and spiritual conditions. It is these conditions and how people sought to change them which give meaning to the stories that are told in history.a mass of people without organisation and without a consciousness of its own demands cannot make history, The subjects of history are not the "forces of production" nor the "laws of history," but instead people make history always acting under certain material and spiritual conditions. It employs the approach of historical materialism; according to this theory,changes in material conditions (how people produce thebearbare necessities of life) affect how society is organised. This means that how men work defines their existence and aspirations. It is a ground-up view of human society: the higher qualities of culture (the superstructure) are founded on the lower qualities of life (the base). This process of thinking is called the material dialectic. The conflict is sometimes realized as a clash of management andlabor, sometimes simply as friction between socioeconomic classes. They are twoparts of a whole that struggle against each other, not just physically but also ideologically.Marx referred to this confrontation as dialectical materialism. Actually theterm includes more than class conflict, for it refers to the view that all change is theproduct of the struggle between opposites generated by contradictions inherent in allevents, ideas, and movements. A thesis collides with its antitheses, finally reachingsynthesis, which generates its own antithesis, and so on, thereby producing change.

of human society: the higher qualities of culture (the superstructure) are founded on the lower qualities of life (the base). This process of thinking is called the material dialectic.

Base and superstructureInMarxist theory,humansocietyconsists of two parts: thebase and superstructure; the base comprehends theforcesandrelations of production employer-employee work conditions, the technicaldivision of labour, and property relations into which people enter to produce the necessities and amenities of life. These relations determine societys other relationships and ideas, which are described as its superstructure. The superstructure of a society includes itsculture,institutions, political power structures,roles,rituals, andstate. The basedetermines(conditions) theThe base primarily determines the superstructure; in orthodox Marxism, this was a one-way street, but latercritics tinkered with the model and found that the superstructure affects the base as well (though the base-to-superstructure influence is still the predominant one).The way in which society provides food, clothing, shelter, and other such necessitiescreates among groups of people social relations that become the foundation ofthe culture. In other words, the means of production structures the society. Capitalism,for example, divides people into those who own property, and thereby controlthe means of production, the bourgeoisie, and those who are controlled by them, theproletariat, the workers whose labor produces their wealth. (Although in Americansociety today we have come to use the term bourgeoisie to mean "middle class," itoriginally designated the owners and the self-employed as opposed to wage earners.)Because those who control production have a power base, they have many ways to ensurethat they will maintain their position. They can manipulate politics, government,education, the arts and entertainment, news media-all aspects of the culture-tothat end.In Guy de Maupassant's short story "The Diamond Necklace," we are given aclear picture of a society that has unequally distributed its goods or even the meansto achieve them. Madame Loisel has no commodity or skills to sell, only her youthand beauty to be used to attract a husband. Without access to those circles where shecan find a man with wealth and charm, she is doomed to stay in a powerless situationwith no way to approach the elegant lifestyle that she desires. The material circumstancesof her society have relegated her to a dreary existence from which she canfind no exit. Her husband is so conditioned to accept the situation that he does not understandher hunger to be a part of a more glamorous and elegant world. He is contentwith potpie for his supper because he has been socially constructed to wantnothing else.The result was ongoing class struggle, such as the one depictedthe "The Diamond Necklace" between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. TheMarxist, then, works to reveal the internal contradictions of capitalism so that the proletariatwill recognize their subjugation and rise up to seize what is rightfully theirs.As he states in a famous passage from The Communist Manifesto, "Let the rulingclasses tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to losebut their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!" AlthoughMme. Loisel makes no move to create a revolution, she is keenly aware of thesource of her sufferings. Rather than physically revolting against her circumstances, Rather than physically revolting against her circumstances, however, Mathilde escapes her circumstances through fantasy, desiring the things that the upper classes possess and thereby accepting bourgeois values as her own.it is not through revolution but through capitulation, an act that supports the storys irony As she tells her affluent friend, who is "astonished to be sofamiliarly addressed by this common personage," "I have had some hard days sinceI saw you; and some miserable ones-and all because of you-".The fall of thebourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat Marx deemed to be "equally inevitable,"and the new system born of such a revolution would be a classless society in whicheveryone had equal access to its goods and services, such as food, education, andmedical care.The Dramond Necklace" is significant to all that is depict that the superstructure is controlled by bourgeiose. Loisel's ,husb~nd is a clerk whose employers have powerovel IllS plofessronal lIfe and therr socral relationships with him also reflect thatpO\~er. They lead vel:y di.fferent kinds of lives.

It is the material world that has created Mme. Loisel, for example, and it is thematerial world that destroys her. Her desire for expensive objects and the circleswhere they are found, generated by the capitalistic system she lives in rather thanby any character flaw, lead her to make a foolish request of a friend. When she losesthe "diamond" necklace, she too is lost. Her relationship with her friend, as well asany hope for a return to the glittering world of the reception, is shattered. She isdestroyed not by spiritual failure but by an economic system that has created a superstructurethat will not allow her a better life. She is trapped by material circumstances,and the final revelation about the false jewels deepens her sense of alienationand powerlessness.s own antithesis, and so on, thereby producing change.Dialectical materialism The Marxist is aware that the working class does not always recognize the systemin which it has been caught. The dominant class, using its power to make the prevailingsystem seem to be the logical, natural one, entraps the proletariat into holdingthe sense of identity andworth that the bourgeoisie wants them to hold, one that willallow the powerful to reIr;.ain in control. Monsieur Loisel, for in,stance, is content withhis lot. He aspires to no more than he has and has difficulty understanding his wife'sdreams. As for Mme. Loisel, she longs for things that "most other women in her situationwould not have noticed." She believes herself born for luxuries-that is, a misplacedmember of the middle class. They both experience the consequent debilitationand alienation described by Marx. Before the loss of the necklace, M. Loisel is givenlittle credit for what he does. As a "minor clerk" he has little personal connection tohis labor and is given no credit for what he produces. After the loss the situation isi~tensified, for the couple are finally shut out of all social contact wi~h bourgeois soCIety.In the end Mme. Loisel moves to carry out what Marx calls upon the proletariatto do. She realizes that her life has been controlled by others. Freed of the debt shehas owed her wealthy friend, she determines to free herself of the social enslavementto her by speaking openly and honestly at last. In doing so, she becomes painfullyaware of the unsuspected depth of the control the latter has had over her. The neckl~ce is false. She has been stripped of her dreams and forced to suffer for nothing.Fmally, by speaking clearly she engages in revolution by refusing to want any longerwhat the bourgeoisie values.

In the Marxist tradition, literary texts are not mysterious creations to be judged according to timeless artistic criteria, butmaterial products of work,Marxist theory is a way of looking at a story, movie, or society in ways that bring out different meanings. It is meant to look at things in a different perspective, looking at things in a way that change your views.