Literary Criticism Essay: Marxism
Emily Bronte’s Victorian novel, Wuthering Heights has formed four critical analysis perspectives: psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, and cultural studies. Despite these varying literary criticisms that have been contemplated by contextual documents, I feel that the Marxist outlook is the most valid of the four. In accordance to Marxists, literature itself, is a social establishment that has a distinct ideological function, based on the background and ideology of the author. In essence, Wuthering Heights is an ideal representation of this type of criticism.
Bronte used her novel as a presentation of the lack of rights women had at the time, as well as a social assessment on the belittlement of the rich towards the poor. Heathcliff, was a character that served as a stimulus for both ideologies Bronte illustrated in her novel. Beyond these two ideologies, Heathcliff embodied the three main principles of Karl Marx’s theories, Economic
Determinism, Dialectical Materialism and Class Struggle throughout the entity of the novel.
Viewing Wuthering Heights in a Marxist criticism lens, it seems that the novel truly is a perfect example of the kind of society that Karl Marx completely warned against. “Marxist criticism is not merely a 'sociology of literature', concerned with how novels get published and whether they mention the working class. Its aim is to explain the literary work more fully; and this means a sensitive attention to its forms, styles and meanings. But it also means grasping those forms, styles and meanings as the product of a particular history” (T Eagleton). Heathcliff, essentially was able to obtain full power over others by the use of capital tactics. The dialect in
Wuthering Heights is used by contrasting the two different realms: the farm owners that farmed
their own land, and the rich society that overtakes the minds of a large quantity of characters.
Heathcliff’s refusal to educate Harteton and