Hello and welcome back again.
We will start discussing today Marxist Literary
Theory and we will continue with our discussion
on Marxist literary theory over the course
of three lectures.
So, this will be the introductory lecture
on Marxist theory.
Marxist literary criticism has represented
for quite some time now, one of the major
strands of theory within the field of English
literary studies.
Yet, ironically, Karl Marx himself did not
produce any coherent theoretical approach
to literature, what this means is that the
whole of Marxist literary theory is a derivative
discourse and dealing with this derivative
discourse mainly poses two different kinds
of problems.
The first problem is that all Marxist literary
theory refers back to the original theories
of Marx, which are primarily on political
economy and as a consequence of this, studying
Marxist literary theory often means learning
aspects of Marxist economics which otherwise
do not have any direct relationship to literary
studies as such.
The second problem is that Marxist literary
theorists, whom we will study in our course
borrows different things from different works
of Marx, now since Marx’s work constitutes
a hugely elaborate set of ideas it becomes
difficult to give you a brief gist of all
the relevant ideas of Marx that you will find
useful in your studies of the various Marxist
literary theorists.
Therefore the strategy that we will follow
in our course will be something like this;
we will first start with a brief sampling
of Marx’s ideas and then we will move on
to study in more details the works of individual
Marxist literary theorists, whose works have
a direct impact on how literature is read
and understood, and in today’s lecture the
Marxist literary theorists that we will be
discussing particularly is Bertolt Brecht.
But before we start discussing Brecht, let
us dwell upon the writings of Karl Marx.
.
Now, Karl Marx’s dates are 1818 to 1833
and he was born in the German city of Trier.
Indeed Trier celebrated in a very big way
the 200th birth anniversary of its most famous
son Karl Marx.
Now interestingly though Marx is today known
primarily for his contribution to political
economic, and also of course, for his communist
ideology which he, in turn, based on his findings
as a political economist, he actually started
off as a student of law and later he switched
to philosophy and he, in fact, did his PhD
thesis on the work of two Ancient Greek philosophers
Democritus and Epicurus.
Indeed it was not till 1859 that his first
major work on economy was published under
the title Contribution to a Critique of Political
Economy; that means, 11 years after he had
published the Communist Manifesto along with
his friend and collaborator of Friedrich Engels
and as you will know the Communist Manifesto
was published in 1848, but it was not directly
an analysis of the economic situation, or
Communist Manifesto is not known for its contribution
to political economy as such.
Now, Marx of course, had worked on his economic
theories for a prolonged period before the
publication of contribution to a critique
of political economy and indeed he also wrote
a number of elaborate works much before 1859,
but none of these works were published during
his lifetime and some of these texts like,
.
The Economic and Political Manuscripts or
The German ideology, which were later published
posthumously, are today considered as important
preparatory exercises done by Marx for his
magnum opus titled Das Kapital, which translates
in English simply as Capital.
Now, let us come to Capital.
Marx originally planned this work as a multi-volume
commentary on the various aspects of capitalist
economy, on how the capitalist economy functions,
but unfortunately he was only able to bring
out the first volume of Capital, Capital Volume
I, during his lifetime and this volume was
published in 1867.
After his death two more volumes of Capital,
Capital Volume II, and Capital Volume II were
published by his friend and collaborator,
Friedrich Engels who compiled and edited the
notes left by Marx to come up with these volumes,
but even then these three volumes do not represent
the entire work as was originally planned
by Marx.
Now, to give you a brief sample of Marx’s
work, I would like to briefly explore the
first chapter of Capital Volume I and this
will of course, not give us any comprehensive
understanding of Marx’s work, or his elaborate
set of ideas.
Nor will it help us understand literature
better, but even then I want to do it because
it will definitely help us get a glimpse of
some of the key features, that characterizes
how Marx intervenes as a theorist into whatever
field that he intervenes in and some of these
key features that characterize Marx’s critical
approach to something would later inform much
of Marxist literary theory.
So, we start with the first section of Capital,
which interestingly is not on capital itself.
It is on commodity, but commodity is an interesting
starting point because it is one of the most
widespread manifestations of the capitalist
economy.
So, what is a commodity?
Well a commodity is anything that we use and
that we buy from the market this means that
we are basically surrounded by commodities
and everything that we buy, be it from a brick
and mortar store around the corner, or be
it online through various web portals, and
be the things that satisfy our physical needs
like food, for instance, or clothing, or our
intellectual or aesthetic needs, like a book,
or a painting, all of these things are commodities.
I do not know whether you have noticed it
or not, but while making this attempt to define
commodity for you I was actually repeatedly
harping on two different aspects that characterize
a commodity.
The first aspect is that a commodity can satisfy
a need, be it a physical need, be it an intellectual
need, be it an aesthetic need, and this first
aspect is characterized or is labeled by Marx
as the use value of a commodity, every commodity
should have a use.
On the other hand, the commodity by the virtue
of being something that can be bought and
sold in a market has another aspect to it,
which we will call after Marx the exchange
value.
So, every commodity should be exchangeable
and, therefore, exchange value basically refers
to the quality of a commodity to be exchanged
in the marketplace with any other commodity.
Let us say that I manufacture shirts, for
instance, and I need a pair of trousers and,
therefore, I can go to the market and let
us say the exchange rate is 3 shirts to get
1 pair of trousers.
So, I can exchange the 3 shirts that I have
manufactured and I can buy 1 pair of trousers
with it.
Now, do not get confused here by thinking
that we cannot usually directly exchange 3
pairs of shirt for a pair of trousers in a
marketplace; rather, what we get when we sell
our shirts is some amount of money, which
we can then go and exchange for a pair of
trousers.
But please remember that the money here is
actually just a mediating agent that facilitates
the exchange between shirts and trousers and
it does nothing more than that.
So, in effect, irrespective of whether I am
using money or doing a barter, I am exchanging
3 shirts for 1 pair of trousers.
Now a commodity not only has these two aspects
use value and exchange value, but also these
two aspects are in contradiction to each other.
Let us take the example of a car that your
parents might have bought.
Now a car is, obviously, a commodity and like
any other commodity it should have two aspects.
So, let us say that you are a car enthusiast
and you tend to drive your parents car quite
a lot.
This means that you are primarily focused
on the use value of the car.
Now let us assume that your parents have it
in their mind to sell the car in future if
they ever require a large sum of money, which
means that though they use the car they are
also focused on the car’s future exchange
value, right, now in this situation there
will arise an obvious contradiction you might
want to drive the car more and more to it
extract as much use value from it as possible,
but that will reduce the future exchange value
of the car through excessive wear and tear.
On the other hand, if your parents want to
preserve the car in as intact a condition
as possible to protect its future exchange
value they might want to limit the amount
of time that you get to drive the car thereby
restricting its use value.
So, as you can see there is a contradiction
between exchange value of a car and use value
of a car.
Now, this internal contradiction that underlines
the existence of a commodity is important
and we will have to return to it later, but
for now let us focus on the question of value
that Marx poses to a commodity.
The question is simple: when we encounter
a commodity, say on the rack of a supermarket
we see a price tag attached to it, which is
an indication of how valuable that commodity
is the question that Marx asks is, what determines
this value?
.
Now, as we have seen Marx identifies a commodity
through it is two aspects – its usability,
use value, and its exchangeability, exchange
value, and Marx argues that the value of a
commodity derives from combining together
these two contradictory things, use value
and exchange value.
To show this he starts by looking at the exchange
value and he argues that if a commodity can
in principle be exchangeable with any other
commodity then it has to have a common factor,
which will make it exchangeable with any other
commodity.
So, if all the commodities do not share a
common factor of course, you cannot know how
much of this particular commodity you would
need to have in order to exchange it for a
particular amount of another commodity, right.
So, in other words there has to be something
in common for me to reach the equation, if
you go back to our previous example, to reach
the equation that 3 shirts will equal 1 pair
of trousers.
Now this common factor cannot be the material
constitution of the commodity because while
discussing about shirts and pants one might
assume that because they are both made of
cotton, so, we will just look at the amount
of cotton that goes into 3 shirts and then
compare it with the amount of cotton that
goes into taking a pair of trousers, but that
will give us a wrong idea because you will
remember that any commodity can be exchanged
with any other commodity and therefore, the
constituent material of a shirt, for instance,
would be very different from the constituent
materials of a car.
Yet, in principle, it is possible to exchange
a particular number of shirts for a particular
number of cars.
So, what is the common factor that gives a
commodity its exchange value?
According to Marx it is labour time.
All commodities become commodities through
the expenditure of certain amount of labour,
which is measurable by time.
So, let us say for instance that a car takes
more labour time to be made than a shirt and
this labor time of course, is common feature
both in case of the shirt as well as in case
of the car, the only thing that is different
is you need more of labour time to make a
car than you need to make a shirt and this
will mean that a car will be more valuable
than a shirt and you will need quite a number
of shirts indeed to be able to exchange them
for one car.
So, the theory of labour time explains why
commodities are exchangeable.
But how does it incorporate the concept of
use value?
Because as I have said, Marx shows that the
value of a commodity is ultimately dependent
on a combination of use value and exchange
value.
To understand this let us look at the concept
of labour time again.
Now, let us say you spend an enormous amount
of labour to construct a car which has only
one slot for a wheel and which makes it impossible
to drive it.
Now will it be of any value, this particular
car that you have designed with only one slot
for a wheel, will it have any value when you
take it to a market?
Well the answer is, of course, not, and the
reason why it will not have any value in spite
of you having spent so much of labour time
making it is that that car that you have made
does not have any usability; it does not have
any use value.
So, when we say that the measure of value
is labour time, we need to qualify the statement
by saying that it should be labour time dedicated
to manufacture things that are needed within
the society.
In other words value is seen to be predicated
on socially necessary labour time, which combines
in itself both the notion of exchangeability
and also, as we have seen, usability.
So, value is therefore, a combination of what
we otherwise saw as a contradiction: use value
and exchange value.
And if we simplify our discussion on commodity
in the form of an equation, it will take a
form that will look something like this:
.
A commodity splits into use value and exchange
value and then they combine together to form
value which is defined as socially necessary
labour time.
So, what are the key takeaways from this discussion
on commodity and its value?
Well, there are two important points that
are being made here and I want you to focus
on them.
The first thing that I want you to focus on
is Marx’s characteristic dialectical approach.
So, as I said that what this brief sample
of Marx’s work will provide us with is,
it will show us how Marx critically approaches
something.
And now, we can see that this is a peculiar
kind of a critical approach which has a name
– it is called the dialectical method.
.
And this dialectical method is an enquiry,
which proceeds by identifying the internal
contradiction underlying something and then
explores how this contradiction is resolved.
So, as in the case of Marx’s analysis of
commodity we are presented with two constituent
concepts, use value and exchange value, which
are in contradiction to each other.
Now in the language of the dialectical method
one of these terms would be labeled as thesis
and the other would be labeled as antithesis;
we then follow how this contradiction is subsumed
and dissolved in a third concept which in
our example is the concept of value as socially
necessary labour time.
And in the language of the dialectical method
this third term would be called synthesis:
so, thesis and antithesis leading to a synthesis,
where they both dissolve in each other.
In Marx, however, each synthesis is again
found giving way to a new set of internal
contradictions.
In fact, that is how capital is structured.
So, each synthesis opens up a new thesis and
a new antithesis, which are then subsumed
within a new synthesis and that again breaks
down and so the chain continues.
.
Indeed, the Marxist scholar David Harvey has
extensively argued how the whole of Capital
can be read as a series contradictory terms
producing synthesis and then again breaking
down into further contradictions and as Harvey
points out in several of his books each of
these contradictions represent crucial conflicts
within the process of capitalist economics
and consequently within the social, political,
and cultural order that is informed by capitalism.
This identification of contradiction is very
crucial because the dialectical method through
which Marx unravels these contradictions and
then engages with them goes on finally to
play a very important role in the work of
later Marxist literary theorists that we will
study.
So, this was the first take away, but there
is also a second take away that I would like
to focus on which is Marx’s treatment of
the mundane reality as an appearance, or as
a façade.
.
For instance, when we go to purchase commodities
from the market we are only confronted with
price tags of different denominations.
Indeed, as you are buying your things from
a supermarket, for instance, usually you do
not even see any human presence behind that,
not even that of a shopkeeper, but as our
discussion of Marx has revealed these commodities
are ultimately different in value because
they are all products of human labour and
it is precisely this human labour time which
gives these commodities their value.
However this underlying reality of labour
relations goes unnoticed when we encounter
a commodity as such, so much so, that we develop
a habit of looking at a commodity as an independent
thing, which is almost fallen from the sky
as it were.
So, let us say when we consume a packet of
rice that we have bought from the supermarket
we are not usually aware of the chain of labour
processes and labouring individuals, who have
produced the rice.
This means that, whereas, the packet of rice
is now made consumable for us because we live
within a human society and because as a consumer
I am in a social relationship with other human
beings who are producers, the capitalist economy
centered on commodity makes us impervious
to this underlying social reality, to this
underlying chain of social relationships.
The appearance of this social relationship,
which manifests itself in the commodity form
gets accepted not as appearance or facade
of the true reality, but indeed as reality
itself.
Both Marx and Marxist literary theorists would
be deeply concerned about this distinction
between the surface appearance, what gets
accepted as reality, and the actual underlying
reality of all the commodities that surround
us and the world that it creates around us,
and just like the Post-structuralist that
we have discussed in our previous lectures,
Marxist literary critics too would remain
interested in problematizing our mundane perception
of reality and in revealing their conventional
nature even though we often take them to be
eternal and universal.
So, what the reveal is that they are only
conventional.
And this point actually becomes very clear,
when we look at Bertolt Brecht and the kind
of intervention that he made.
.
Now, Brecht was born in 1898 in the southern
German province of Bavaria and belonged to
that generation which passed through the First
World War as young men and women.
Now, as you will know from our discussion
on the topic of New Criticism, we had said
that the world war presented for Europe not
only a political, but also moral crisis of
value and the very basis of the bourgeois
civilization that had been built in the west
over the past 4 centuries appeared to be crumbling,
appeared to be falling apart.
So, between 1920s and 1930s when Brecht made
his appearance as a dramatist he started by
expressing this collective disillusionment
of his generation with the realities of the
bourgeois civilization and he did that by
developing a strikingly new form of drama
which he called Epic theater.
This epic theater would go on to become one
of the strongest form of Marxist aesthetic
manifestation in the 20th century and we will
take this up for discussion in this lecture,
but let us continue with Bertolt Brecht’s
biography for a moment.
So, in 1933 with the rise of Nazism, Brecht
like so many other intellectuals left Germany
and again like, so many of them finally, found
refuge in America where he stayed till 1947.
It was in these years of exile, part of which
he of course spent in the Scandinavian countries,
but most of which is spent in America,
.
Brecht produced some of his most well known
plays and they include Mother Courage and
her Children, The Life of Galileo, The Good
Woman of Setzuan, and of course, The Caucasian
Chalk Circle.
Brecht, however, became one of the victims
of the communists baiting that gained prominence
in America during the mid 20th century and
as a consequence he had to leave America in
1947.
After he left America he moved to east Germany,
which was at that point of time a satellite
state of the Soviet Union and it was there
that he died in 1956.
So, now, that we know a little about Brecht’s
life let us take up for discussion Brecht’s
innovation of epic theatre.
In coining this particular kind of experimentation
that he did with the dramatic form as epic
theater, what Brecht was doing was he was
actually drawing from the distinction between
epic and tragedy that we can find in Aristotle’s
Poetics, and as you will know from our discussion
of Aristotle the key effect, which tragedy
is supposed to produce as far as Poetics is
concerned is Catharsis.
Now to achieve catharsis irrespective of whether
you understand catharsis as a purgation of
the audience’s emotion or as the education
of the audience’s emotion, there is a need
for the audience to identify with the characters
and their actions portrayed on the stage and
this kind of identification is often actually
felt to be at the core of the pleasure that
we derive from art.
So, we often like a theater or a movie, for
instance, because we identify ourselves with
the fate of the hero or the heroine and we
feel happy when something good happens to
them and we feel devastated when they come
to some harm.
What Brecht sought to achieve through his
epic theater was to break this sense of identification
between the audience and the characters and
their actions, which were being portrayed
on the stage.
Thus, whereas, in the case of tragedy we have
identification at the heart of the whole thing.
.
In case of Brechtian epic theatre, we have
something that is referred in German as verfremdungseffekt,
which in English literally translates into
the alienation effect.
Now, in talking about the alienation effect
we will focus on two questions: the first
question is, how is alienation effect practiced
or applied as a dramatic strategy?
And the second question that we will ask is,
how does alienation effect change the way
in which a drama functions?
Well, to start with the first question, alienation
effect as a dramatic strategy is applied in
various different ways so, for instance, in
some Brecht and play you might see that rather
than speaking out their dialogues, what is
expected in a usual play, the characters will
come onstage carrying placards with things
written on them.
So, rather than listening to them we will
have to read what they are carrying.
In other plays you might see, for instance,
an actor suddenly stepping out of his character
stepping out of the role that he is playing
and directly delivering a lecture to the audience.
Sometimes you might see some of them coming
out of their role to summarize what they have
said as when they were playing that particular
role or maybe they will randomly start singing
a song for instance.
The stagecraft might also be used to produce
this alienation effect where lights, ropes,
and other things of stagecraft which are usually
hidden will be exposed to the audience.
Now, in all of this the effort is to break
the sense of reality, that drama usually conveys
because when we go and see a drama, when we
go and see a movie, we take it as a slice
of reality.
Alienation effect through employing these
various strategies, that I just mentioned,
wants to break this sense of reality that
a drama usually tries to project and it tries
to expose this reality as an appearance, as
a façade, an illusion and consequently makes
the projected reality foreign or alien to
us; it no longer appears to us as reality.
That appearance becomes foreign, becomes alien
that is why it is called the alienation effect.
What exactly is achieved by this alienation
effect, now we know how it is done?
But why should one do it?
Brecht’s argument is that, a drama by asking
the audience to identify with its version
of reality naturalizes a particular kind of
world order.
So, for instance a drama produced from within
bourgeois society presents the bourgeois worldview
as the most usual and the most eternal form
of reality and when the audience identifies
with this reality it loses the power to critique
it and to conceptualize alternative forms
of reality.
By jerking the audience out of this complacent
identification with any one projected reality,
what Brecht’s alienation effect does, is
it transforms the audience into a group of
critics.
The social, the economic, the political, the
cultural relations, depicted through the epic
theater loses their aura of naturalness and
in turn opens them up to criticism and also
to the possibility of change because, now,
in the form of epic theater these things do
not appear to be usual they do not appear
to be natural they appear as a façade, as
an illusion.
It is, however, important to remember here
that because the alienation effect involves
the jerking out of complacency, the audience
is jerked out of complacency.
There can be no single way of achieving the
alienation effect.
This is because if, for instance, imagine
the same strategy is applied in play after
play, then it will become a convention in
itself and it will stop disturbing the audience
out of its complacency.
That is why when we talk about alienation
effect we can talk about it in a general way,
but we cannot pinpoint one particular way
in, which this effect can be created because
Brecht suggests that we will need to constantly
change our strategies through which this alienation
can be affected.
So, with this discussion on Brecht we end
today’s lecture on Marxist literary theory.
In the next lecture we will move to a discussion
of another major Marxist critic Louis Althusser.
Thank you for listening.
