1. Marxist Criticism

2. Marxist Criticism Overview
Marxist Theory: developed in the 1930s and often advocates Marxism. Marxist Theory looks closely at fiction from a different lens.
In what social class does each character belong?
How does the assigned social class impact the character?
How do characters of different social classes interact?
Marxism generally focuses on the clash between the dominant and repressed classes in any given age and also may encourage art to imitate what is often termed an "objective" reality
Marxist criticism = concerned not with what the text says but with what it hides.

3. Marxist Criticism According to a Marxist viewpoint:
Our existence is marked by an on-going struggle between the classes in a given society (haves vs. have-nots, capitalists vs. workers).
Capitalists’ consciousness of the world is impaired. As consumers, who only manipulate the commodities, they have no knowledge of the details of production.
The proletarian (worker) through his direct contact with the commodity is a producer, a revolutionary, and a positive member of a society.

4. According to Marxist Theory, Capitalistic Society results in:
Alienation:
Because the worker is detached from the commodity (s)he produces, (s)he becomes detached also from members and groups in the society
Oppression:
The subject’s identity is under constant pressure and exclusion from the various state structures
Fragmentation:
As workers are alienated from each other and oppressed, the society as a whole becomes fragmented, rather than unified

5. Marxist Criticism: Questions to Ask
Whose story is told in the text? Are lower economic groups ignored or devalued?
Does the text reflect or resist a dominant ideology (Capitalism vs. Socialism vs. Communism)? Does it do both?
Does the main character in the narrative affirm or resist bourgeois values (capitalistic, materialistic, stereotypically middle-class)?
To what extent are the lives of the characters influenced or determined by social, political, and economic forces? To what extent are the characters aware of these forces?