Nama : Ayu Fitriana Widyaningsih
Nim : A320090067
Class : B
MARXIST LITERARY THEORY
Marxist literary theory is a form of critique or discourse for interrogating all societies and their texts in terms of certain specific issues – including race, class, and the attitudes shared within a given culture.
Marxist Literary Theory focuses on:
• Focuses on the representation of class distinctions and class conflict in literature
• Focuses more on social and political elements than artistic and visual (aesthetic) elements of a text.
Whereas Marxism is a method of reasoning but developed it into a more concrete theory of historical change in which “God played no role” and which would become foundation for a theory of revolution. “World is controlled by means of production”, for example: means of production such tank, money, factory, etc.
The history of Marxism:
1. Ancient Period
Means of production is slavery.
2. Feudal Period
Means of production is feudalism.
3. Modern Period
Means of production is capitalism.
Capitalism
Capitalism is the ideological base of the United States and much of Western culture. One tenet of capitalism is exploitation. Exploitation is Employees/owners make money (or profit) by paying employee/workers less than the value of their production. For example, an employee makes 100 mechanical pencils an hour that are worth $1 a piece on the market, but rather than pay the employee $100/hour, the employer pays the employee $6.75/hour for a profit of $93.25 (minus fixed costs, such as raw materials, and taxes). Exploitation leads to Alienation. Alienation is a withdrawing or separation of a person or a person's affections from an object or position of former attachment.
Classes of Marxism
• Each period characterized by classes
Social groups defined by their place in the process of production.
• Ancient period, for example consisted of two classes :
1. Slave-owners and slaves.
2. Each defined by their place in the process of production. Slave owners owned slaves and live off their labor, whereas slaves were the property of slave-owners and were forced to work for them.
World view
Because the relationship between classes in any historical period was always exploitative, it only followed that the two groups would have very different views of the world and the future.
• Exploiters always viewed the world as just fine and future in which there would be little or no change.
• The exploited didn’t view the world.
Dialectical conflict
In every era, a ruling class controls the means of production and has a class interest that hinges on maintaining the control, but has the period goes on and exploitation intensifies the self awareness.
Utopia
It is the aim of marxism, the world without class, not borjuis, not proctatus, etc.
