Marxist criticism

Definition of Marxist criticism

A Marxist critical perspective explores ways in which a text reveals the ideological oppression by a dominant economic class over subordinate classes. In order to do this a Marxist might ask the following questions:

• Does the text reflect or resist a dominant ideology?
  • Does it do both?
• Does the main character in a narrative affirm or resist upper-class values?
• Whose story gets told in the text?
  • Are lower economic groups ignored or devalued?
• Are values that support the dominant economic group given privilege?
  • This can happen tacitly, in the way in which values are taken to be self-evident.

Using these bullet points it is possible to make a Marxist critique of Wilfred Owen’s poetry.

Does the text reflect or resist a dominant ideology?

• Wilfred Owen’s poetry speaks out strongly against the patriotic ideology which was the cause and continuation of the First World War in 1914
• Owen frequently uses authority figures e.g. God, politicians, and priests as symbols of the dominant ideology of the Home front. His feelings for those who supported the war and slaughter is summed up best in Dulce et Decorum Est
• The ideology of the church was particularly dominant in the Edwardian era and throughout the war. Owen’s own Christian ideology was in tension with the patriotic nationalism which demanded ‘death before dishonour’. Owen presents these tensions in Le Christianisme and At a Calvary near the Ancre. S.I.W. is a very good example of how Owen explores the dogma of ‘death before dishonour’.

Does it do both?

• To a certain extent Owen seems to be looking both ways in his poetry. The poems are clearly critical of those in authority who send men to their deaths, yet, as an officer, Owen is caught up in the whole war machinery and is to a certain extent part of that dominant ideology. Poems which mention his guilt about his role include Strange Meeting and Mental Cases. 

Does the main character in a narrative affirm or resist upper-class values?

In a novel we can separate the characters form the writer. In poetry like Owen’s the situation is different. 

• If we take Owen to be the main protagonist of the ‘narratives’ which he recounts in his poetry, then inevitably he affirms the upper-class values which were represented by the Army hierarchy. He had no choice: any soldier who disobeyed orders would be punished
• Characters such as Tim in S.I.W. and the soldier in The Dead Beat who cannot, for whatever reason, continue under the stress of war have to die
• Looking at Owen’s biographical details, we see that he aspired to the upper classes but that his war experiences brought him into contact with the lower classes about whom he wrote in great detail.

Whose story gets told in the text?

• In very many of his poems Owen tells the story of the British Tommy, the private soldier, the ‘men’ at the front. He includes himself in some of the poems and in Strange Meeting he tells the story of the strange friend - the German soldier whom he had killed the previous day.

Are lower economic groups ignored or devalued?

• Owen was reluctant to write about heroes. The private soldiers who would have either volunteered to join up or been conscripted (after 1916) were almost exclusively working class men (thus not ‘traditionally’ heroic). However, Owen writes about their resistance, their camaraderie, their homes and families, their hopes, fears and dreams. Poems such as Exposure and Spring Offensive show how much Owen values their bravery
• However Owen does not idolise the Tommy. He is a man ‘take him for all in all’ (Hamlet Act I, sc 2). The Sentry, the Dead Beat and S.I.W. are poems which show how ordinary men crack under the pressure of war. In Disabled and Mental Cases Owen describes the fate of some of those who survived
• In The Letter Owen uses the voice of a working class soldier in a letter home. On one hand this poem celebrates the warmth and humanity of the man, on the other hand it might be interpreted as being patronising in its use of the man’s common speech.

Are values that support the dominant economic group given privilege?

This can happen tacitly, in the way in which values are taken to be self-evident.

• The context of war meant that the officers were in command and therefore were seen as superior to the men. Officers in their turn had a responsibility for their men and their safety. They also had to contact the families of the dead. Officers were drawn from the middle and upper classes. Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves were public schoolboys
• What Owen does have in common with them is a shared hatred of the carnage which occurred on the Western front. They all spoke out against those with a vested interest in the war’s continuation. In Insensibility, Exposure and Miners Owen directly attacks the complacency of the privileged for whom the men on the front sacrifice their lives. In other poems, such as SIW, Disabled and The Dead Beat, Owen is equally damning about the less privileged people on the home front who send their sons and lovers to war out of personal pride
• In several poems Owen writes about an officer and his men. Futility, Inspection, The Sentry, The Dead Beat, S.I.W. and Dulce et Decorum Est are all poems where Owen gives first-hand accounts and refers to his own involvement in the situation as an officer.

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