Marxism and Feminism

Marxism is a set of economic, social and political ideas based of the teachings of Karl Marx and Friedrech Engels. His ideas are cited as an inspiration for the revolutions in Russia, China and Cuba.

The key ideas are:

1. All history is the history of class struggle.
2. History is the actions of men in pursuit of their own ends, but not in circumstances of their own choosing.
3. Capitalism is not only a economic system, but also a political system.

A Marxist analysis called the 'Polarisation of the Classes' states that the class structure is becoming increasingly polarised, and soon the two opposites will disappeared into either the bourgeoisie (upper classes) or the proletariat (working classes).

The Marxists believe that deviance is anything that differs from the societal norm. Certain behaviour is seen as deviant because it differs from the societal norm, not because it is particularly harmful.

Marxist critics will identify some of these ideas within literature. They will look at:

• the way the way the relationships between characters are treated favourably or unfavourably
• the way the author encourages the reader to hold certain assumptions or values
• how the actions of the characters are shown not to be due to the actions of humans, but are a result of fate or other hidden forces
• the narrative voice of a text, and what that tells us about the society we live in
• how the text highlight conflicts between the different class systems.

Feminism is the movement that advocates women's rights on the grounds of social, economic and political equality to men.

Feminist literary criticism looks at:

• the representation of women within literature (what drives the character? how is the woman described? is it fair?)
• narrative voice (is it a woman? do the perspective of men in a text fairly describe women?)
• the politics of woman authorship (i.e. Bronte sisters, why did they have to take pseudonyms?)
• the exclusion of women from the literary canon (GCSE texts- mostly male writers/poets)