Social Class: Definition, Formation, and Power Dynamics in Society

1. Journal: • What do you consider to be a social class? How do you define it? What is it based on? What do you think leads people to become members of a particular social class? Can a person change his or her social class? If so, how? Is one social class more powerful or weaker than another? Explain your responses in a complete paragraph.

2. Marxism and Marxist Literary Criticism A Lens of Social Class & Social Power

4. Introduction • Any political practice or theory based on an interpretation of the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels • Including Communist Parties and Communist states

5. Marxism • Along with psychoanalytical, feminist, and cultural criticism, Marxist literary criticism exemplifies what the French philosopher Paul Ricouer terms a “hermeneutics of suspicion.” • These are approaches that concern themselves not with what the text says but what it hides.

6. Marxism • The Marxist approach to literature is based on the philosophy of Karl Marx, a German philosopher and economist. His major argument was that whoever controlled the means of production (the factories) in a society controlled the society. • Marx noted a disparity in the economic and political power enjoyed by the factory owners and not allowed to the factory laborers.

7. Marxism • He believed that the means of production (i.e., the basis of power in society) should be placed in the hands of those who actually operated them. He wrote that economic and political revolutions around the world would eventually place power in the hands of the masses, the laborers.

8. Reading from a Marxist Perspective • To read a work from a Marxist perspective, one must understand that Marxism asserts that literature is a reflection of culture, and that culture can be influenced by literature. • Marxists believe literature can instigate revolution.

9. 4 Main Areas of Study 1. Economic Power 2. Materialism vs. Spirituality 3. Class Conflict 4. Art, Literature, & Ideologies

10. Economic Power • A society is shaped by its forces of production. Those who own the means of production dictate what type of society it is. • The two main classes of society are: 1. the bourgeoisie (who control the means of production and wealth) and 2. the proletariat (who operate the means of production and are controlled by the bourgeoisie).

11. Economic Power • Since the bourgeoisie own the means of production—and, therefore, control the money— they can manipulate politics, government, education, art, and media. • Capitalism is flawed in that it creates commodification (a desire for possessions, not for their innate usefulness, but for their social value). Display of material objects is the most common way of showing off one’s wealth.

12. Economic Power • Commodification is one way the bourgeoisie keep the proletariat oppressed. Whenever the proletariat manages to acquire some sort of status symbol, the bourgeoisie concocts a new one; thus, the proletariat continues to struggle, never able to “catch up.”

13. Materialism vs. Spirituality • Regardless of what some might claim, social values reflect material goals, not abstract ideals. • The material world is the only non-subjective element in a society. Money and material possessions are the same by every measure within a society, whereas spirituality is completely subjective. • The quality of a person’s life is not destroyed by spiritual failure but by material failure.

14. Class Conflict • A Capitalist society will inevitably experience conflict between its social classes. • The owners and the workers will have different ideas about the division of the wealth generated, and the owners will ultimately make the decision. • This constant conflict, or dialectical materialism, is what instigates change.

15. Class Conflict • The bourgeoisie present their political, economic, and social structures as the only reasonable ones. The proletariat, indoctrinated from birth to have pride in their station, are prevented from wanting to overthrow their oppressors (ironically, the smaller and actually less-powerful group). • The only real social division is class. Divisions of race, ethnicity, gender, and religion are artificial, devised by the bourgeoisie to distract the proletariat from realizing their unity and rebelling against their oppressors.

16. Art, Literature, & Ideologies •Art and literature are among the vehicles by which the bourgeoisie impose their value system on the proletariat. The arts can make the current system seem attractive and logical, thus lulling the workers into an acceptance of it. • Works of art and literature are enjoyable, so the audience is unaware of being manipulated.

17. Art, Literature, & Ideologies • The bourgeoisie control most artistic output because, whether through patronage or sponsorship, they are the entity that funds the arts and entertainment • Any artist who wishes to criticize the bourgeoisie must do so in a subtle way (satire, irony, etc.).

18. Recurrent Terms in Marxism • Base vs. Superstructure • Base in Marxism refers to economic base. Superstructure, according to Marx and Engels, emerges from this base and consists of law, politics, philosophy, religion, art. • Ideology The shared beliefs and values held in an unqestioning manner by a culture. It governs what the culture deems to be normative and valuable.

19. Recurrent Terms in Marxism Hegemony • Coined by the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci, this “refers to the pervasive system of assumptions, meanings, and values—the web of ideologies, in other words, that shapes the way things look, what they mean, and therefore what reality is for the majority of people within a given culture.”

20. Recurrent Terms in Marxism 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.

21. False Consciousness • Those who enjoy the fruits of belonging to a dominant group of the society barely generally are filled with what Marx called “false consciousness.” • Since it is not in their interest to notice the ways in which an economic structure marginalizes others, they tend to buy into an ideology that supports that structure.

22. Main Ideas in Marxism • Class consciousness: • The self-awareness of a social class • Its capacity to act in its own rational interests

23. Marxist Criticism • The author’s social class • Its effects upon the author’s society • Examining the history and the culture of the times as reflected in the text • Investigate how the author either correctly or incorrectly pictures this historical period

24. Marxist Literary Theory • 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

25. ? Questions Raised By the Marxist Literary Lens • How does the author’s social and economic class show through the work? • Does the work support the economic and social status quo, or does it advocate change? • What roles does the class system play in the work? ? ?

26. Questions Raised By the Marxist Literary Lens • What role does class play in the work; what is the author’s analysis of class relations? • How do characters overcome oppression? • What does the work say about oppression; or are social conflicts ignored or blamed elsewhere?

27. Questions Raised By the Marxist Literary Lens • Does the work propose some form of utopian vision as a solution to the problems encountered in the work? • In what ways does the work serve as propaganda for the status quo; or does it try to undermine it? • Does the literature reflect the author’s own class or analysis of class relations?

28. Ask Questions • Is there an objection to socialism? • Does the text raise criticism about the emptiness of life in bourgeois society? • What does the author portray about society? • What is emphasized, what is ignored? • Are characters from all social levels equally sketched? • Are the main problems individual or collective?

29. Expose class conflict Who or what is the dominant class? What does the dominant class believe? How do they impose their beliefs on others? Show how the working class is trapped Show how the working class is oppressed Show how the working class can end their own oppression How to Use

30. Marxist Literary Theory • Materialist Criticism • Social Criticism • Committed Criticism

31. Applying Marxist Literary Theory to Texts

32. Excerpt from Run with the Horsemen by Ferrol Sams • The colored folk were beginning their revival service, which they called Big Meeting…They were, however, having dinner on the grounds today, and the boy was eager to go. He had extracted an invitation from Ole John Tom the evening before…There were certain unwritten but nonetheless well-defined barriers of mutual respect between the races. Nowhere has the doctrine of religious freedom been more openly extended than in the rural post-Reconstruction South, except, of course, to Catholics and Jews. As long as a group designated itself Baptist, almost any code of behaviour was acceptable. One did not, however, attend a strange church out of idle curiosity. Certainly one did not traverse racial lines as a titillated spectator. Although no one had ever bothered to tell the boy that he should not go to a colored church, he knew within his heart that such a venture was strictly taboo. He consequently went about obtaining permission to go with Ole John Tom in a very circuitous fashion (Sams 241).

33. Excerpt from Run with the Horsemen by Ferrol Sams • The boy stayed busy on the farm all that summer. Buddy came to him early in the season and persuaded him to talk to his father. As a result he and Buddy had five acres of watermelons that they were raising on halves. The father furnished the land, the mules, the fertilizer, and the seed. Buddy and the boy furnished the labor. It would be their responsibility to harvest and sell the melons. When the crop was finished, they would have a settling-up day. All the money would be turned in, the fertilizer and seed bills would be presented and halved, and then the profits would be split down the middle, one half to the father, the other half to Buddy and the boy. That was standard procedure for all the tenants on the farm, except that the two boys would not have to pay a grocery bill in addition (Sams 205).

34. Union Not me alone— I know now— But all the whole oppressed Poor world, White and black, Must put their hands with mine To shake the pillars of those temples Wherein the false gods dwell And worn-out altars stand Too well defended, And the rule of greed’s upheld— That must be ended. —Langston Hughes

35. Activity Re-cap • What should we expect to see through a Marxist lens? • the political context of the text itself (places the study of literature in the context of important social questions) • that we as readers are socially constructed subjects • the idea that literature is a part of ideology

36. References Appleman, Deborah. Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents. New York, Teachers College Press, 2000. Brewton, Vince. “Marxism.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2002. 14 Sept. 2004 < http://www.iep.utm.edu/literary.htm >. Brizee, Allen. “Karl Marx.” Marxist Literary Criticism. 2000. 18 Sept. 2004 <http://athena.english.vt.edu/~hbrizee/marxindex.htm >. “Karl Marx.” 15 Sept. 2004 < http://ni206173181.blogspot.com >. Mansour, Dr. Wisam. “Marxist Literary Theory.” 2000. 16 Sept. 2004 < www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy4573/Lectures/marxism.html >. Schakel and Ridl. Approaching Poetry: Perspectives and Responses. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. “Marxism.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 14. Sept. 2004 < en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism >.