Marxist Criticism & Victorian Literature
KEY NOTE: A Marxist critic is NOT a critic of Marxism. They are someone who criticizes and
analyzes texts based on Marxist ideology.
1) What is important to a Marxist critic?
2) What are possible/potential answers to these questions using any random fiction story?
2a
2b
2c
2d
3) What are different ways a Marxist critic could interpret a given text? In other words, what are
two ways he could go when breaking down a text?
4) Explain this “rough approximation.”
5) Write a sentence (or two) that weaves together the ideas of base/superstructure, ideology,
and hegemony in a way that makes them explain Marxist criticism.
(more on back!!)
*This essay is a brief summary of her article
6) Do you agree with the Marxist interpretation of this work? Why or why not?
7) What do you think about this Marxist criticism?
8) So would a Marxist like Alice in Wonderland? Does it serve as propaganda for the status quo or
work to undermine it? What does it say about oppression?
9) Connect this idea (underlined) back to the recurrent themes of Marxist criticism found in
question #5. Be sure to use the specific Marxist terminology!
Marxist Literary Criticism: Brief Guide
According to Marxists, literature reflects those social institutions out of which it emerges and is itself a social
institution with a particular ideological function. Literature reflects class struggle and materialism: think how often
the quest for wealth traditionally defines characters. So Marxists generally view literature "not as works created in
accordance with timeless artistic criteria, but as 'products' of the economic and ideological determinants specific to
that era" (Abrams 149). Literature reflects an author's own class or analysis of class relations, however piercing or
shallow that analysis may be. (1)
What do Marxist literary critics do with texts?
They explore ways in which the text reveals ideological oppression of a dominant economic class over subordinate
classes. The Marxist critic simply is a careful reader or viewer who keeps in mind issues of power and money, and
any of the following kinds of questions: (2)






What role does class play in the work; what is the author's analysis of class relations? (2a)
How do characters overcome oppression? Does the main character in a narrative affirm or resist
bourgeoisie values?
In what ways does the work serve as propaganda for the status quo; or does it try to undermine it? Does the
text reflect or resist a dominant ideology? (2b)
What does the work say about oppression; or are social conflicts ignored or blamed elsewhere? (2c)
Whose story gets told in the text? Are lower economic groups ignored or devalued?
Who was the audience of the text? What does the text suggest about the values of this audience? (2d)
This approach concerns itself not with what the text says but what it hides. As Terry Eagleton, a leading Marxist
critic, writes, the task of Marxist literary criticism "is to show the text as it cannot know itself, to manifest those
conditions of its making (inscribed in its very letter) about which it is necessarily silent."
By its very nature, ideology is silent. Like the water in the aquarium breathed by the fish, ideology is virtually
invisible. Its invisibility gives it greater power. Ideology - defined in general as the shared beliefs and values held
in an unquestioning manner by a culture - exerts a powerful influence upon a culture. Those who are marginalized
in the culture are most aware of the ways in which an ideology supports the dominant class in the society. 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. (3)
Recurrent terms in Marxist literary criticism:




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 unquestioning manner by a culture. It governs what that
culture deems to be normative and valuable. For Marxists, ideology is determined by economics. A rough
approximation: "tell me how much money you have and I'll tell you how you think." (4)
(5)
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."
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, Diana, JFK Jr., the murders at Columbine High School in Colorado) make commodities out
of grieving people. The media expresses sympathy but economically thrives on these events through
ratings boost.
Alice in Wonderland Viewed Through Marxist Criticism
The novel Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was written in 1865. It is considered as a novel of the “literary nonsense”
genre, but one could analyze it and find much more than that. This book and its different adaptations have many Marxist
aspects; socioeconomic status, bourgeoisie, and classism are just a few of them. “Critical Theory Today” written by Lois
Tyson (*) discusses many topics that shape how someone sees the world around them: socioeconomic status along with
ideology, the American Dream, wealth, status and social classes. Queen Victoria was the monarch at the time this book was
published and some would see that the characters in this book draw upon her, her court, and her times.
This book comments upon wealth and status and it is a reflection of Victorian England and it’s class structures. Each
character in the book represents a level of social class that England had in the Victorian Era. The Red Queen (Queen
Victoria), her king, the Duchess and the White Rabbit represent the elite or aristocrat level of society. They were all high
enough in the social order to be invited to play croquet or to be invited into the Red Queen’s company.
Figures such as the Mad Hatter and the March Hare could be seen as the “commoners” or the middle class, along with the
Dormouse, and other creatures that Alice meets along the way. The servants or the lower class are people such as the
footmen, the royal gardeners who paint the white roses red, the Duchess’ cook and the hookah-smoking caterpillar. And
finally, the Cheshire cat could possibly be seen as the under-class, the lowest of the lows. It sneaks around and knows all
the information about the characters in Wonderland and, but is literally a wild and shifty animal and it also doesn’t exactly
belong anywhere in society. (6)
The fact that there is a class system in a story such as Alice in Wonderland leads readers to believe that they are judged on
what they have, their wealth and their title. Everyone in the story wants to be good enough to be in the Queen’s company,
and just about every character ends up doing that in some way or another.
The class system in Victorian England was classified from inequalities in areas such as wealth, working and living
conditions, education, religion, culture and life span. The working class in this era was men and women who did physical
labor and got paid weekly. The Middle Class included men who did clean work and were paid monthly. The upper class
didn’t work and their money came from inheritance and investments. (O’s Note: great description of classes!)
This again connects to the characters in this story. The working class/servants of the Red Queen did whatever she
commanded them to do. The Middle class/the Mad Hatter, March Hare, and the Dormouse worked for the Queen. The
Mad Hatter especially fits into this category because he makes hats for the Queen.
In the Tim Burton adaptation of the movie (2010), it is played out on a giant chessboard. In chess, you have the king and
queen, knights, bishops, rooks and pawns. These pieces only get to move in certain ways and to certain places; the queen is
the highest of the pieces. She can move in any direction possible, because of her high aristocratic rank. The king doesn’t
have much power, but the point of the game is to take the king out. The knights, bishops and rooks have less power, but
still enough to move in a few different ways; like the upper class. The pawns are just like the working class; they can only
move one way because they are so far at the bottom of the social ladder. This is just like people of different social classes in
Victorian England and the story of Alice in Wonderland. If you think about it, this could be a comment on how social class is
a game, and the best or highest person wins. (O’s Note: telling commentary on class hierarchies, no?)
The bourgeoisie (Tyson, 54) in this story is obviously in the form of the Red Queen. She is the person in power, and in
a lot of adaptations, she over powers her husband. In the Disney version, her husband is this tiny little man who doesn’t
really have any say in anything. In the Tim Burton version, The Red Queen beheads her husband before the story even
starts because she wanted to be the only important person.
In the Nick Willing’s 1999 movie adaptation, the King is that husband who is always trying to please his wife so she won’t go
crazy and scream “off with their heads!” The Queen seems to tolerate him, but only if he is on his best behavior and always
on her side. He is very wary and somewhat insignificant to the story. The Queen also has subjects and servants who in some
versions, greatly dislike her but put up with her in order to be in their social class, not to mention keep their heads.
These classifications according to status connect to the Marxist ideology of what we could call the “Victorian
Dream.” Like the American Dream, the Victorian Dream is the idea that you can move up in society by working hard to
become wealthy and to get where you’ve “dreamed of getting to”. The Victorian Dream is all about rising to greatness and
becoming better and more well off than everybody else (Tyson, 57). Alice falls down the rabbit hole after following the
white rabbit out of extreme curiosity. The rabbit keeps stating that he is late for a very important date (Carroll, 9-10). She
sees him go through a certain door that has a beautiful garden on the other side. She instantly wants to get to that land,
and goes through many different trials in her travels to arrive there. She sees beautiful garden and the Red Queen and
wishes to be just like them. (7)
This is a criticism on The Victorian Dream in a way. Alice wants to rise to the top just like everyone else in the story and
passes through all the different social classes and different ranks of people and titles to get there. She even changes size to
accommodate with the social class she is with at that time. Her size seems to represent the high or low status of the social
class she is visiting. She is normal size before she falls into the rabbit hole, then eventually shrinks and meets the caterpillar;
she is a bit bigger when she meets the Mad Hatter, the March hare and the Dormouse.
After this, she continues to grow until she arrives in the Red Queen’s court where she is the largest she’s been throughout
the story. But when she gets to the garden and sees how the elite or aristocrats behave, she changes her mind and is
satisfied with being “just Alice” and changes back to her normal size. This could also be a rebuttal about The American
Dream, it’s not as good as you think it is; just be happy with what you have, like Alice is in the end of the story. (8)
It’s extremely interesting that she goes through all these different social classes to get to the highest one, when in reality,
Alice seems to be of wealthy status. Looking at the novel and the movie adaptations I have seen, the story starts out with
some sort of fancy lunch party or and engagement party. The animated Disney version begins with Alice and her nanny of
some sort reading outside and the book begins the same way, except Alice’s sister is reading to her instead of a nanny or
governess. But in Wonderland, she has to get to the highest rank all by herself instead of just being born into it like in her
real normal life.
As you see here, Alice in Wonderland connects to many different aspects of Marxist criticism. There are many different
reasons why Alice changes size and goes through so many different social classes throughout the story. It comments on and
connects to the social classes of the time period that the book was written in, the Victorian Era. Social class was obviously a
very important thing in this era. (9)