21st Century Lesson About Marxist Reading of Texts
21st Century Lesson About Marxist Reading of Texts
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
EM 18 OF MA 4TH SEMESTER 2020
Dr Saunak Samajdar
Marxism Lecture 7
Marxism
Along with psychoanalytical, feminist, and
cultural criticism, Marxist literary criticism
exemplifies what the French philosopher Paul
Ricouer terms a “hermeneutics of suspicion.”
Because all these theories suspected older
values and institutions to be unjust and skew.
Reification
Often used to describe the way in which people
are turned into commodities useful in market
exchange.
For example, some would argue that the media’s
obsession with tragedy (e.g. the deaths of Jon
Benet Ramsay, Princess Diana, JFK Jr., the
murders at Columbine High School in Colorado
and Newtown Connecticut) make commodities
out of grieving people. The media expresses
sympathy but economically thrives on these
events through ratings boosts.
Ideology
Ideology:
Consciousness and perceptions within a society
Often controlled by the ruling class
Determined according to what is in the ruling
class's best interests
Confuses the alienated groups
Creates false consciousness
Example: commodity fetishism (perceiving labor
as capital ~ a degradation of human life) as a form
of ALIENATION
Marxist Literary Criticism
A loose term describing literary criticism
informed by the philosophy or the politics of
Marxism
Terry Eagleton (Marxism and Literary Criticism,
1976)
Not merely a 'sociology of literature', concerned with
how novels get published and whether they mention
the working class
Aim:
To explain the literary work more fully
A ensitive attention to its forms, styles and meanings
Grasping those forms, styles and meanings as the product of a
particular history
Marxist Literary Criticism
Goals: