EL – 117 LITERRAY

Module 8 CRITICISM
Course: Literary Criticism
Unit No. 8
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Learning Objectives:

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

1. Trace the development of Marxism

2. Determine the method used by Marxism
3. apply the method to a text

Engage

Before reading the exploration text, Try to answer the question below. This will
not be part of the recorded output,

How do you understand the term Marxism?

Explore

Marxism

Introduction

Rise up, oh proletariat, rise up. Rise up, oh common worker, and seize the moment. Rise up,
you who are about to be enlightened concerning the nature of reality and the true
relationships among humankind, materials’ Sessions, and philosophical ideas that affect the
way we live. Listen, learn, and be free." Having successfully captured the attention of her
Introduction to Marxism students on the first day of class, Professor tone continued her
opening remarks while distributing the syllabus to the remaining class members.

"Whether Marxism is considered a philosophy, a theory, a method or a movement is of little

concern. Its goal and hopefully your goal by the time this semester ends is to change the
world. For too long the worlds peoples have been oppressed, suppressed, deluded or cajoled
into believing that reality is simply the way things are. No, a thousand times no! If we can
but for a moment remove the blinders placed upon our eyes, the plugs within our ears, and
the walls encasing our thoughts placed there by the so-called upper classes of society, we
will be free for the first time to examine how our own thoughts and allegiances have been
manipulated so that many of us have actually accepted the values and beliefs of a group of
people whose only goal is to keep us in our place by now and then pacifying us with a
meager increase in salary." .."In this course we will discover the true nature of reality and
thereby reject some, if not many, of our present beliefs. We will learn how to free ourselves
from the yoke of our boss's ideology that may presently bind us and unconsciously keep us
from becoming what we know we can be. We will be confronted with an understanding of
ourselves and realize, perhaps for the first time, that our consciousness has been shaped by
social and economic conditions, and apart from society we cannot understand ourselves.
And through our study of Marxism we will learn not only how to interpret our world but also
how to transform it from a place populated by the haves and the 'have nots to a classless
society where economics and its accompanying social relationships no longer determine our
values and sense of self-worth.

By studying, learning, and applying the principles of Marxism we are about to master, we
can shape our world and free it from sexism, bigotry, and prejudice for all peoples. Working
and studying together, we can transform both ourselves and our world." Although Professor
Stone's introductory remarks were designed to stir her students interest in Marxism and do
not represent all Marxist positions, her statements do embody some of the core principles of
Marxist thought: that reality itself can be defined and understood; that society $napes Our
consciousness; that social and economic conditions directly influence how and what we
believe and value; and that Marxism offers us an opportunity and a plan for changing the
world from a place of bigotry, hatred, and conflict resulting from class struggle to a classless
society where wealth, opportunity, and education are actually accessible for all people.

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Historical Development

Unlike other schools of literary criticism, Marxism did not begin as an alternative theoretical
approach to literary analysis. Before twentieth century writers and critics embraced the
principles of Marxism and employed these ideas in their criticism, Marxism had already
flourished in the nineteenth century as a pragmatic view of history that offered the working
classes of society an opportunity to change their world and therefore their lifestyles. By
providing both a philosophical system and a plan of action to bring about change in society,
Marxism offers to humanity a social, political, economic, and cultural understanding of the
nature of reality, of society, and of the individual. These and other similar ideas have
become the basis of what we know today as socialism and communism. Two German
writers, philosophers, and social critics--Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels
(1820-1895) -coauthored a text in 1848 that proclaimed Marxism's basic doctrines: The
Communist Manifesto. In this work, Engels and Marx declare that the capitalists or the
bourgeoisie had successfully _enslaved the working class, or the proletariat through
economic policies and control of the production of goods. Now the proletariat, Engels and
Marx assert, must revolt and strip the bourgeoisie of their economic and political power and
place the ownership of all property in the hands of the government, which will then fairly
distribute the people's wealth. In addition to this work, Marx himself authored Das Capital
years later, in 1867. In this text, Marx enunciates the view of history that has become the
basis for twentieth-century Marxism, socialism, and communism. According to Marx, history
and therefore our understanding of people and their actions and beliefs is determined by
economic conditions. Marx maintains that an intricate web of social relationships emerges
when any group of people engage in the production of goods. A few, for example, will be the
employers, but many more will be the employees. It is the employers (the bourgeoisie) who
have the economic power and who will readily gain social and political control of their
society. Eventually this "upper class" will articulate their beliefs, their values, and even their
art. Consciously and unconsciously they will then force these ideas, or what Marx calls their
ideology, upon the working class. In such a system, the rich become richer, while the poor
become poorer and more and more oppressed. To rid society of this situation, Marx believes
that the government must own all industries and control the economic production of a
country to protect the people from the oppression of the bourgeoisie.

Taken together, The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital provide us with a theory of
history, economics, politics, sociology, and even metaphysics. In these writings, little or no
mention of literature, literary theory, or practical analysis of how to arrive at an
interpretation of a text emerges. The link between the Marxism of its founding fathers and
literary theory resides in Marx's concept of history and the sociological leanings of Marxism
itself. Since Marx believed that the history of a people is directly based on the production of
goods and the social relationships that develop from this situation be necessarily assumed
that the totality of a people's experience social interactions, employment, and other day-to-
day activities were directly responsible for the shaping and the development of an
individual's personal consciousness. That our place in society and our social interactions
determine our consciousness or who we really are is a theme Marx highlights throughout his
writings. Since the literary approach to a text that was common during Marx's time made
similar sociological assumptions, as did his own theories of society and the individual, Marx
had no difficulty accepting his literary peers methodology for interpreting a text. )Known
today as the "traditional historical approach," this critical position declares that a critic must
place a work in its historical setting, paying attention to the author's life, the time period in
which the work was written, and the cultural milieu of both the text and the author, all ot
these concerns being related to sociological issues. To these criteria, however, Marx and
Engels add another element to be considered: the economic means of production. This
fourth factor addresses such concerns as who decides what texts should be published or the
date of publication or the distribution of any text. Such questions necessitate an
understanding of the social forces at work at the time a text is written or is being
interpreted. In addition, this added criterion forces the critic to investigate the scheme of
social relationships not only within the text itself but also outside the text and within the
world of the author. By adding this sociological dimension, Marxism expands the traditional,
historical approach to literary analysis by dealing with sociological issues that concern not
only the characters in a work of fiction but also the authors and the readers. This added

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dimension Marx believed, links literature and society and shews how literature reflects
Society and how it reveals truths concerning our social interactions. Not surprisingly,
American and European critics took particular interest in the sociological implications of
literature and Marxist principles during the first few decades of the twentieth century,
especially at the end of the 1920s and throughout the 1930s, the time of the Great
Depression. Called the Red Decade, the 1930s saw many American and continental
intellectuals turn to Marxism, with its sociological concerns, as a way to help their countries
out of economic depression¥ ln America, for example, Marxism provided scholars with a
ready-made doctrine and a pragmatic plan tor reshaping their country. Using Marxism's
emphases on economic production, social relationships, and the individual, American critics
such as Vernon Louis Parrington began reinterpreting their country's cultural past,
articulating its present conditions, and prophesying about its future. The time for change
was now, they declared, and Marxism provided them a definition of reality and a
methodology whereby humankind could redefine itself, society, and the future.

After the 1930s and with the passing of the Great Depression, Marxist criticism faded into
the literary background, championed, so it seemed, only by "leftist" critics who many
declared were out of touch with the rest of literary scholarship. Not until another period of
social upheaval, the 1960s and early 1970s, did American and European critics once again
recognize Marxism as a viable option for solving the social unrest and political turmoil
caused by the Vietnam War, the Algerian conflict, the Cuban missile crisis, and a variety of
social problems in America and Europe stemming from the racial and sexual revolutions of
this period. During this time Marxist criticism was once again thrust to the forefront of the
academic world by a variety of intellectuals who held key positions in American universities,
such as Berkeley, Columbia, and Sap Diego. An assortment of scholarly journals that loudly
proclaimed Marxist, such as Telos, also appeared. In Europe in the early 1970s, a group of
academics known as the Frankfurt School banded together to rejuvenate Marxist doctrine
and revive the writings of Marx and Engels. From the mid-1970s to the present, Marxism has
continued to challenge what it deems the bourgeoisie concerns of its literary counterparts
through the voices of such critics as Terry Eagleton and Frank Lentrichia. Critical movements
and theories like structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, and New Historicism have all
examined Marxism's basic tenets and share some of its social, political, and revolutionary
concerns. Like Marxism, these contemporary schools of criticism want to change the way we
think about literature and life. And from these various schools of thought present-day
Marxism has borrowed many ideas. It has now evolved into an array of differing theories,
with the result that there no longer exists a single school of Marxist thought, but a variety of
Marxist critical positions. Common to all these theoretical positions, however, is the
assumption that Marx, no matter how he is interpreted by any of his followers, believed that
change for the better in a society is possible if we will only stop and examine our culture
through the eyes of its methods of economic production.

Assumptions

Marxism is not primarily a literary theory that can be used to interpret a text. Unlike other
schools of criticism, it is first a set of social, economic, and political ideas that its followers
believe will enable them to interpret and, more importantly, change their world. Although a
variety of Marxist positions exist, most Marxists adhere to a similar understanding of the
world.

Ultimate reality, declares Marxism, is material not spiritual. What we know beyond any
doubt is that human beings exist and live in social groups. All of our actions and responses
to such activities as eating, working, and even playing are related in some way to our
culture and society.

In order to understand ourselves and our world, we must first acknowledge the
interrelatedness of all our actions within society. IE, for example, we want to know what we
are and how we should live, we must stop trying to find answers by looking solely to religion
or philosophy; instead we must begin by examining all aspects of our daily activities within
our own culture. Upon examining our daily routines, including our beliefs and values, we will
discover that it is our cultural and social circumstances that determined who we are. What
we believe, what we value, and in many ways what we think are a direct result of our culture

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and our society, not our religion or our supposed philosophy of life. When we examine our
society, declares Marxism, we with discover that its structure is built on a series of ongoing
conflicts between social classes. The chief reason for these conflicts lies in the varying ways
members of society work and utilize their economic resources. According to Marx, the
various methods of economic production and the social relationships they engender form
the economic structure of society, called the base. In America, for example, the capitalists
exploit the working classes, determining for them their salaries and their working conditions,
among a host of other elements of their lives. From this base, maintains Marx, arise the
superstructure multitude of social and legal institutions, political and educational systems,
religious beliefs, values, and a body of art and literature that one social class (the capitalists
in America, for instance) uses to keep members of the working class in check.

The exact relationship between the base and the superstructure, however, is not easily
defined. Some early Marxists believed that the base directly affected the superstructure
and, in essence, determined its existence (a position known as vulgar Marxism or the
reflection theory whereby the superstructure reflects or mirrors the base). Other Marxists
assert that even Marx and Engels changed their opinions concerning this relationship and
attest that the elements contained in the superstructure have a reality of their own, with
each element affecting the other elements of the superstructure while simultaneously
affecting the base. Whatever the position held by Marxists today, most would agree that the
relationship between the base and the superstructure is a complex one and will continue to
remain a contentious point in Marxist theories the relationship between the base and the
superstructure becomes clearer when we consider capitalistic America. Marxism declares
that in America the capitalists hold the economic purse strings and therefore control the
base, making the capitalists the center of power in society. In addition to controlling the
base, the capitalists also decree what beliefs are acceptable, what values are to be held, and
what laws are to be formed. In other words, the capitalists, not the working classes, control
their society's superstructure and its ideology, the direct expression of any society's
superstructure. A much debated term in Marxist criticism, ideology often refers to a culture's
collective or social consciousness (as opposed to the material reality on which experience is
based), or its personal awareness of a body of laws or codes governing its politics, law,
religion, philosophy, and art to which that culture's bourgeoisie and therefore its
superstructure subscribes. According to Marx and Engels, a culture's ideology is more
frequently than not synonymous with "false consciousness," for such an ideology has been
defined and established by the bourgeoisie and therefore represents a set of false
assumptions or illusions used by the elite to dominate the working classes and to maintain
social stability. An ideology, then, may be a conscious stating of a society's philosophy, its
laws, or its acceptable customs or it may be a somewhat vaguer and implicit understanding
of its beliefs.

Consciously and unconsciously, this social elite inevitably forces its ideas upon the working
classes. Almost without their knowing it, the working classes have become trapped in an
economic system that decrees how much money they will earn, when they will take
vacations, how they will spend their leisure time, what entertainment whey will enjoy, and
even what they believe concerning the nature of humanity itself. Indeed, their system of
values and meanings by which they live, work, and play, their hegemony, is dictated by the
bourgeoisie. It is to the working classes that Marxism addresses its rallying cry. All working
men and women can free themselves from the chains of social, economic, and political
oppression if they will only recognize that they are presently not free agents but individuals
controlled by an intricate social web dominated by a self-declared, self-empowered, and self-
perpetuating social elite.

Since this social elite, or the bourgeoisie, shapes a society's superstructure and its ideology,
this social class necessarily controls its literature, for literature is one of many elements
contained in the superstructure itself. From this perspective, literature, like any other
clement of the superstructure, becomes involved in the social process by means of which
the bourgeoisie indoctrinate the working class with their elite ideology as reflected in the
literature. What becomes natural and acceptable behavior in that society is now depicted in
its literature and, in essence, controlled by the bourgeoisie, who control the economic
means of production. Because literature is part of a society's superstructure, its relationship

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to other elements of the superstructure and to the base becomes the central focus in
varying Marxist literary theories. If, for example, a Marxist holds to the reflection theory
concerning the relationship of the base to the superstructure, then this theorist posits that
the economic base directly determines the literature. For such a critic, literature will mirror
the economic base. On the other hand, if a Marxist theorist believes that elements of the
superstructure have realities of their own and affect each other and also affect the base, a
text may be responsible for altering not only other elements within the superstructure but
also the base. And even the critics who adhere to this position hold differing opinions
concerning the definition of a text and its relationship to other elements of the
superstructure and to the base.

Although all Marxists assert that a text must be interpreted in the light of its culture, how
they define the text and its social relationships provides us with an array of Marxist literary
theories and differing methods of analysis. There exists, then, no single Marxist theory of
literature, but many, each hoping to change society.

Methodology

Since there exists no absolute voice of authority expounding "pure" Marxist principles, there
can exist no single Marxist approach to literary analysis. Like other methods of
interpretation, Marxism includes an array of differing voices, with each voice articulating
particular interests. These differing voices all agree, however, that Marxism, with its
concerns for the Working class and the individual, provides the most workable and satisfying
framework for understanding our world. Recognizing the interrelatedness of all human
activities, Marxism, they believe, enables us to understand ourselves and how we as
individuals relate to and are affected by our society. And these voices all assert that we
must help direct and change our society, our culture, our nation, and our world by leading
humanity towards an understanding and an acceptance of socialism.

As an approach to literary analysis, Marxism's methodology is a dynamic process declaring

that a proper critique (proper being defined as one that agrees with socialistic or Marxist
beliefs) of a text cannot exist isolated from the cultural situation in which the text evolved.
Necessarily, Marxists argue, the study of literature and the study of society are intricately
bound together. Such a relationship demands that a Marxist approach to a text must deal
with more than the conventional literary themes -matters of style, plot, characterization, and
the usual emphasis on figures of speech and other literary devices utilized by other
approaches to literary analysis; Marxism must move beyond these literary elements and
must uncover the author's world and his or her worldview. By placing the text in its historical
context and by analyzing the author's view of life, Marxist critics arrive at one of their chief
concerns: ideology. It is the ideology expressed by the author as evidenced through his or
her fictional world, and how this ideology interacts with the reader's personal ideology, that
interests these critics.

Such an ideological and obviously political investigation, assert Marxist critics, will expose
class conflict, with the dominant class and its accompanying ideology being imposed either
consciously or unconsciously upon the proletariat. The task of the critic, then, is to uncover
and denounce such anti-proletarian ideology and show how such a destructive ideology
entraps the working, classes and oppresses hem in every area of other lives. Most
important, through such an analysis the Marxist critic wishes to reveal to the working classes
how they may end their oppression by the bourgeoisie through a commitment to socialism.

A Marxist critic may begin such an analysis by showing how an author's text reflects his or
her ideology through an examination of the fictional world's characters, settings, society, or
any other aspect of the text. From this starting point, the critic may then launch an
investigation into that particular author's social class and its effects upon the author
‘society. Or the critic may choose to begin textual analysis by examining the history and the
culture of the times as reflected in the text, and they investigate how the author either
correctly or incorrectly pictures this historical period.

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To gain a working understanding of a Marxist approach to literary analysis, Ira Shor, a

Marxist critic and writer, suggests that we ask certain questions of any text, questions that
will enable us to see the Marxist concerns that are evidenced or ignored in the text and
therefore by the author the following questions, She believes, will provide the framework
fora lose analysis of a text and will demonstrate Marxism's concern for theorist relationship
between literature and society: Is there an outright reaction of socialism in the work? Does
the text raise fundamental criticism out the emptiness of life in bourgeois society? In
portraying society, that approximation of totality does the author achieve? What is
emphasized, what is ignored? How well is the fate of the individual linked originally to the
nature of societal forces? What are the work's conflicting rces? At what points are actions or
solutions to problems forced or unal? Are characters from all social levels equally well-
sketched? What are the values of each class in the work? Are the main problems or solutions
in e text individual or collective? and Which values allow effective action? ee College English,
November 1972, volume 34 for a complete listing of 1or's questions and other perspectives
on Marxism.)

Whether the critic asks these questions or follows a variety of other methods of textual
analysis, a Marxist approach seeks to expose the dominant class, show how its ideology
controls and oppresses all actions of the or king class, and finally highlights those elements
of society most affected by such oppression. Such an analysis, hopes the Marxist critic, will
ad to action, to social change, to revolution, and to the rise of socialism. In the essay that
follows, note how the student applies Marxist principles in her interpretation of Browning's
"My Last Duchess." What is her main interest-class struggle, economics, and social
behavior? Does she use y of Shor's questions in her analysis? If so, which ones? Does she
successfully show the dynamic relationship between society and literature? and where in her
analysis might she strengthen her interpretation?

Student Essay

A Marxist Interpretation of "My Last Duchess "Marxist doctrine posits the existence in every
society of a base and a superstructure. In each society, the economic base (capitalism or
communism, for example) affects and is affected by the superstructure (art, politics, the
psychological views of individuals and classes, etc.). Much Marxist literary criticism is
therefore directed toward the class influences of the society in which a particular author
lives and writes; such criticism, however, can be applied to an author's secondary world; ie.,
in this case Browning's created social order established in "My last Duchess."

Browning's dramatic poem "My Last Duchess" contains four characters of differing social
class: the envoy of the Count of Tyrol, a working-class man; Fra Pandolf the artist, a monk;
the deceased duchess, a female aristocrat; and the Duke of Ferrara who voices this dramatic
poem. Placing himself at the top of the economic chain, the duke perceives himself, others,
and the world around him in relation to his own social position. Without question, his
membership in the bourgeoisie and his perception of himself within this socioeconomic class
affects his attitudes toward and treatment of the people and the arts in his world.

Apart from the duke, the characters in "My Last Duchess" exist in subservient socioeconomic
positions. Representing the lower classes of society, the envoy of the Count of Tyrol listens
to the extensive speech of the duke. Unlike the duke, the envoy works for his living (in this
case arranging a marriage between the duke and the count's daughter), and therefore the
envoy must listen to the duke (all emphases added). We, the readers, see this envoy only
through the eyes of the duke, a person we thoroughly mistrust by the end of the poem; but
through the unintended revelations of the duke's speech we learn the reactions of the
envoy. Immediately after the duke reveals his murder of the duchess, the duke says, "Will't
please you rise?" perhaps indicating that the envoy has risen in horrified disgust. Although
of a lower class, the envoy seems to possess a higher moral standard than the duke;
wanting to get away from the murderer, he forgets his social "place" and starts to leave the
room ahead of this aristocratic duke. To reassert his position, however, the duke says, "Nay,
we'll go/Together down, sir." Because his ideology defines and controls acceptable social
behavior, he commands the right to leave the room ahead of the envoy. Although the envoy
may be morally superior to, the duke, the envoy's op-pressed social situation requires that
he defer to the wishes of the aristocracy and do as the duke commands.

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Socially greater than the envoy but subordinate to the duke, Fra Pandolf comes from the
class of the clergy. Conversing with the duchess in a class-conscious manner, Fra Pandolf
addresses her as "my lady," and he says (according to the duke), "Paint / Must never hope to
reproduce the faint/ Half-flush that dies along her throat." In complimenting a woman of
higher economic status than he, the monk fulfills his social obligations to his moneyed
superiors.

In societal rank, the duchess is second only to her husband. By the standards of her time,
she exists as both a social and a sexual inferior to the duke. Her true nature, however, can
be discerned through the warped speech of the duke: she seems to be young, naive, and
accepting ("She had /A heart... too soon made glad / Too easily impressed"). She is a woman
trained according to her social position to flatter others with thanks and to blush at the
praise of men ("such stuff / Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough / For calling up
that spot of joy"). Like the monk and the envoy, the duchess performs as her economic rank
dictates.

With his past and present monetary wealth (or, as he puts it, his "nine hundred-years-old
name"), the duke commands the ultimate socioeconomic position in Browning's poem. His
self-worth derives from this position. Since birth, he has possessed power by virtue of his
wealth and the resulting family prestige. Because he is used to such power, he chooses
"Never to stoop." He, like his sculpture of Neptune taming the sea-horse, must control his
world. His economic status and his ideology apparently demand that he reign over the world
around him: the envoy, the monk, his wife and even art itselt. When he discovers, however,
that he cannot control his youthful wife as he does everyone else, he destroys her.
Unquestionably, his bourgeoisie opinion of himself and his accompanying economic wealth
directly affect his desire to manipulate and control his world.

The duke's language betrays this obsession with power. Throughout his conversation he
uses numerous first-person pronouns (" my last duchess") and references to himself ("I call,"
"none puts by / The curtain I have drawn for you, but I"). Emphasizing his power over others,
he states that people ask him about his painting only "if they durst." And when he speaks of
his relationship to the duchess, he expresses his role in terms such as "will" and
"commands" and "lessoned."

Beyond word choice, the duke's language expresses socioeconomic dominance in more
subtle ways. In the midst of what he well knows to be an overwhelming and lengthy speech,
the duke professes to lack eloquence; he uses pretended self-deprecation to emphasize the
power, he is exercising even at that moment over the envoy; i.e., the duke says he has no
skill in speech, when, in reality, the power of his crazed speech allows the envoy no
opportunity to respond. The duke thus manipulates the envoy by subjecting him to this long,
artificial, maniacal speech, at the end of which he reasserts his social position over the
envoy, as discussed earlier.

Acting upon his hunger for power, the duke manipulates not only the envoy but also the
monk, the duchess, and any art in his possession. Perhaps the duke chose Fra Pandolf to
paint the portrait because of the monk's artistic skill; more likely, however, he chose the
monk because of this clergy's specific social position as a sexually powerless male. Fra
Pandolf presents no threat to the duke, unlike all the other men who bring a "spot of joy to
the cheek of the duchess. Because of his own social pre direction to power, the duke relates
to the monk on a social class level rather than an aesthetic or personal one.

As part of a society’s superstructure, art exists on an aesthetic level and as such can be
assigned value, however that may be defined. But for the duke, art (good or bad) is simply
another thing to control; he does not perceive or care about the aesthetic quality of art. His
perception of good art seems erroneous: he believes the portrait of the duchess to be "a
wonder," but that is difficult to accept when he tells us that Fra Pandolf completed it in a
mere day. Compounding his misunderstanding of art, the duke makes himself the only
person who may reveal the portrait to observers, thereby controlling the viewing of his art.
When he refers the envoy to another piece of art, the duke says, "Notice Neptune, though, /
laming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, / Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!” In

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emphasizing himself as the motivation behind an artist's Creation, the duke reveals that he
possesses art not for art's sake, but so that he might control it.

The center of the duke's class power struggle ultimately revolves around the duchess. Like
the duke's art, the duchess, the duke believes, existed to be controlled by him. Because she,
as his wife, reflected his control to the general public, he needed mastery over her love, her
emotions, and even her words. He demanded that his physical love elicit more gratitude
from her than flowers given by "some officious fool." Behaving as a lady of her class should
have behaved, the duchess played the coquette with the courtiers around her, seemingly
placing the duke's "gift of a nine hundred-years-old name/ With anybody's gift."
Unfortunately for her, something in her "depth and passion," her youthful joy, and her
blushing thankfulness to all who praised her angered the duke: he saw her behavior as
existing apart from his authority. To subjugate his wife, the duke imposed his will on her,
and when he thought she refused to bend to it, "all smiles stopped together." Having been
murdered, the duchess ceased to exist except on canvas. Now the duke has achieved total
control over his framed wife; others can see her only when he chooses to pull the curtain
away from her portrait.

Revealed through the language of his conversation, the duke's lust for economic and class
power pervades his relationships both with artistic matters and with the people around him.
With his bourgeoisie attitudes and beliefs, he believes he deserves to be respected, obeyed,
and loved while at the same time he oppresses, belittles, and even murders those around
him.

Activity:

Make your own interpretation of the Father Goes to Court by Carlos Bulosan using Marxist
model. Provide title for your essay.

NOTE: READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY.

1. This assignment will be accomplished individually.
2. The interpretation or analysis must be brief but meaningful using Marxism theory or
approach.
3. Formatting:.
a. Font Style: Arial
b. Font Size: 12 pts
c. Page Size: 8.5” by 11” (Letter Size Format/Short)
d. Page Margin: 1” (All Margins)
e. Line Spacing: 1.5
3. The assignment should be an MS Word Document and must be submitted with the
following File Name on through google classroom or email.
Deadline.. April 20, 2021 [email protected]
Your Surname Your First Name_Assigment _______

Prepared by: EMELIA B. RAMOS, Ph.D.

References:

Ashcroft, B. et al. (1991). The empire writes back (theory and practice in post-colonial
literatures). New York: Routledge
Charles, Bresler E. (1994). Literary criticism: An introduction to theory and practice. New
Jersey: Prentice hall Englewood’s Cliffs
Selden, Raman. (1976). Practicing Theory and Reading Literature. Kentucky: The University
Press of Kentucky Eagleton, Terry. (1983). Literary Theory an introduction. Cornwall, UK:
Basil Blackwell Ltd.
Richer, David H. (1989). The critical tradition classic texts and contemporary trends. Boston:
St. Martin’s Press Davis, Robert C. (1986). Contemporary Literary Criticism. New York:
Longnam Inc.

“Shine and Serve with Honor and Excellence.”

Romblon State University
San Fernando, Romblon
Technology Education Department

RSU-SFC TED Form No. 005: Course Module Format

“Shine and Serve with Honor and Excellence.”