21st Century Literature from the Philippines to the World.

MODULE 1, LESSON 1: MARXIST LITERARY CRITICISM

WHAT TO SUBMIT:

 ACTIVITY 2 – Photo Analysis

 ACTIVITY 3, 4, 5, 6 – Comprehension Check
 ACTIVITY 7 – Writing Activity
 ACTIVITY 8 – Application

ACTIVITY 2:

Study the following photo which compares disparity between the rich and the poor. Write your insights about it on a separate sheet of paper.

The image shows us a great comparison of disparity between the rich and the poor, and two different parts of how people live in the society.
The rich who have money and wealth, living in a very comfortable place and beautiful houses, has a good and best education and high salary jobs,
and has the great opportunity to own, possess, or hold everything they need and they want. From foods, clothes, shoes, jewelries, cars, and other
luxuries and pleasures that they want, they can definitely have because they have a lot of money to purchase all of it. On the other hand, the poor
people whose lacking in money and struggling to meet their basic needs and necessary demands living in a very small, risky, noisy, and dirty areas
striving every day to earn just a small amount of money for them to have foods in their table to eat. They are doing a lot of job for them to have a
comfortable life they always want to have, but some are unemployed, has a poor quality of jobs, being deprived of a good education, as well as
access and opportunity to a decent income and jobs to develop themselves and participate fully in the society which is one of the primary causes
of people experiencing great poverty.

It describes different types of people, areas, houses, and community on the opposite sides of the spectrum. The image is a representation of
inequality, the huge gap between the poor and rich people. It’s painful to look at this image because it tends to highlight how unfair it is for
different types of people, that when the rich people was giving great opportunity and chances to own whatever they want, be whenever they
want, and be whoever they want, the poor people doesn’t given that kind of chances and opportunity, they are always the one being left behind,
the ones who doesn’t have a choice to be what and who they want to be, to have everything they need and want, and be anywhere they want
because life has been challenging them that asking for more is not on their minds because what they only think is to continue life and survive their
everyday life by the small amount of money they earned everyday even if they are working a lot. When rich people see money as an opportunity,
poor people see it as something to be earned that they needed for them to be able to live. When poor people are working really hard to earn, rich
people’s money and power are the ones working for them. It’s a sad reality that people are being classified in those two opposite sides of
spectrum but for me I know that they may be classified as rich or poor, it doesn’t really matter because at the end of the day they are all human
deserving to be part of the society God has created for all of us to live in, that despite of the classification the society has label the people to be
they are all deserving of equal rights, chances, access, and opportunities that the society can offer.

ACTIVITY 3: Answer the following questions.

1.What is Marxist Criticism? – Marxist Criticism is a type of literacy criticism based on the writings of German philosopher Karl Marx. It is a critical
approach to literature which shows the relationship between literature and social conditions under which it is produced.

2. Where did Marxist came from? – Marxist came from and is based on the writings of German philosopher Karl Marx.

3. What are the key concepts of Marxism? – Marxism is the scientific study of society and literature that covered a lot of different key concepts
that includes worker’s uprising, materialism, class struggle, effect of capitalism, classless society, ideology, and working class.

4. Who are the important 20th century Marxist literary critics? – The important 20th century Marxist literary critiques include George Lucaks,
Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Terry Eagleton, Raymond Williams, and Frederic Jameson.

5. What is the relationship between Marxism and Literature? – Marxism is the scientific study of society and literature, so it has everything to do
with literature. Literature is the outcome of active participation of the writers in the socio-political, and economic life of the people, and Marxism
views literature and literary works as reflections of the social institutions from which they originated from. Marxism approach believed that even
literature itself is a social institution that has a specific function, it places a literary work within the context of class and assumptions about class
and that literature can be viewed as ideological that can be analyzed in terms of superstructural model. Marxism approach are connected and has
a very tight relationship when it comes to the literature, literary works, and analyzing literary texts, as well as to the society, history, culture, and
political systems in which it is created.

6. What is the significance of Marxism to literary criticism? – Marxism emphasizes class, socioeconomic status, power relations among various
segments in the society and the representation of those segments. Marxism is significant and valuable to literary criticism because it enables
readers to see the role that class plays in the plot of a text. Marxist criticism is not merely a sociology of literature concerned with how novels get
published and whether they mention the working class but also to explain the literary work more fully and this means giving a sensitive attention
to literary works various forms, styles, and meanings.

7. How are the key concepts of Marxism correlated with literature?

In a literary theory, a Marxist

8. What are the basic parts of Marxist critical analysis?

ACTIVITY 4: Write a short Marxist critical analysis of the poem above, use the following questions as your guide.

*What is the title of the poem about?

* Who is the author?

* What is the theme of the poem?

* What is the social class of the author?

* Which class does the work claim to represent?

* What value does it reinforce?

* What values does it subvert?

* What conflict can be seen between the values the work champions and those it portrays?

* How do characters from different classes interact or conflict?

* What social classes do the characters represent?

* What is the scholarly or literary value of the reading text?

ACTVITY 5: Write the word that makes the most sense in the blank using the words below.

1.We all look at the woman’s feet peeking underneath her long skirt.

2. She is wiggling her toes, purple from nail polish.

3. I can tell from the cord thingies at the side of her neck and the way she smacks her big lips that whatever she is eating tastes really good.

4. I swallow with her, my throat tingling.

5. They just glance at us when we file past the shacks.

6. We cut through another bush, zip right along Hope Street for a while before we cruise past the big stadium with the glimmering benches.

7. I keep expecting the clean streets to spit and tell us to go back to where we come from.

8. Budapest is big, big houses with satellite dishes on the roofs and neat graveled yards or trimmed lawns.

ACTIVITY 6: Answer the following questions based on the story “Hitting Budapest”.

1.Who are the characters in the story? Describe each one of them.

2. What are the social status of the characters?

3. How do the characters live on the day-to-day basis?

4. How can you describe the setting of the story?

5. What can you say about the distribution of wealth between the rich and the poor as narrated in the story?

6. Why is the story titled “Hitting Budapest”?

7. Would you say the main characters are extremely poor children? Explain your answer.

8. Point out instances where the main characters displayed ignorance and illiteracy.

9. Pick out scenes or incidents described in the story which reflects the social reality and economic life of the people. What problems do they
represent? In what ways can you help to solve these problems.

10. How can you relate the story with Marxism?

ACTIVITY 7:

Writing Activity: In one paragraph, discuss the key concepts of Marxism and explain why is it a critical approach in analyzing and critiquing a
certain material.
ACTIVITY 8: APPLICATION

Write a critical analysis of the story “Hitting Budapest” using Marxist Criticism.