Marxist Literary Criticism - Ideologies

Ideologies

It is through the theories of class struggle, politics and economics that Marxist literary criticism emerged. The thought behind Marxist Criticism is that works of literature are mere products of history that can be analysed by looking at the social and material conditions in which they were constructed. Marx’s Capital, states that, 'the mode of production of material life determines altogether the social, political, and intellectual life process. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary their social being, that determines their consciousness.' Put simply, the social situation of the author determines the types of characters that will develop, the political ideas displayed and the economical statements developed in the text.

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Famous quotes containing the word ideologies:

    Methods of thought which claim to give the lead to our world in the name of revolution have become, in reality, ideologies of consent and not of rebellion.
    Albert Camus (1913–1960)

    Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens—and real diseases are useful material.
    Susan Sontag (b. 1933)

    There are no more ideologies in the authentic sense of false consciousness, only advertisements for the world through its duplication and the provocative lie which does not seek belief but commands silence.
    Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969)