Marxism In Modern Literature

Like Freudian theory, Marxist theory's influence on Modern art and literature can be first broken down by its influence of writers, and the works they produced, and on readers, and the way critics use Marxist theory to interpret the works.

Influence On Writers
Under the influence of Marxist theory, an author is probably interested in examining:
a) History As  Historical Materialism: The author hopes to show how all human relations are at root a class struggle between oppressor and oppressed, and/or a struggle for control of the means of production.  These include "human relations" writ both large and small: both on a global and political level (like war, the fall of Rome, the spread of Christianity etc) or on a personal level (how two characters or a family relates to one another).  Examples: Heart Of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, A Doll's House.

b) Writing As A Means of Controlling Ideology: Marxist theory suggests that if hegemony is maintained through ideology, the oppressed must gain control of their own ideology.  This is explicitly the argument presented by Virginia Woolf in A Room Of One's Own; women will break the cycle of oppression by writing their own stories and defining themselves as human, intelligent, equal etc.  This theory also inspired writers of color both in the US and throughout the world, to tell their own stories and redefine the cultural image of the Black man, the Latino, the African etc.

Influence On Readers And Critics
Under the influence of Marxist theory, a reader or critic is probably interested in examining:
a) The Work As Ideology: Simply put, Marxism argues that any work of art functions either consciously or unconsciously as ideology; it does not define some eternal representation of "Truth" so much as it represents the ideologies that serve to oppress or an attempt to rebel against that oppression (see b, above).  When combined with a dose of Nietzsche, this way of thinking about art will have a profound effect on so called "Post Modern" critical theories.

For example, under this model, a Marxist reading of Wordsworth's Romanticism as an means through which the urban, middle to upper class English elite attempted to maintain hegemony over the rural, agricultural peasant class; that is, "pastoralism" really masks nothing more than the modern aristocracy or emerging urban middle class keeping control over the peasant class, as it had always done.

The documentary Hip-hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes takes this approach, as well, but in this case examining how minority cultures are encouraged to proliferate images or representations of themselves that will inevitably empower those who hope to oppress them.

b) As A Record Of Historical Relations:  A Marxist influenced reading of, say a Jane Austen novel would be interested in the role of women as the oppressed and the negotiation of romantic relations and marriage as deeply, if not entirely, influenced by a struggle for domination or freedom.

A Feminist Marxist reading of Austen would see the novel's women as the oppressed.  However, another approach might note that there are essentially no representations of the working class in these or any other 18th century novels, so that, just as Woolf points out that histories omitted women from history, Austen omitted maids, servants and peasants.