Trainspotting Analysis

Through a Marxist’s eyes, Death of a Salesman represents the struggle of middle-class families in a capitalistic world. From an early age, kids are taught to do well in school, be involved with sports and activities, and to go on to college; all in hopes of achieving the American Dream. This dream of obtaining success through hard work leads many into the

Marxist literary criticism flourishes from Karl Marx and Engel’s theories on revolutionary change. Through the implicit and explicit detail of a novel, Marxist criticism unravels a text’s underlying economic purpose. A Marxist will read a text and expose “social contexts in ways which the author themselves would not admit” (158). A professor from the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) teaches authors inevitably impose their social class ideology on their work, consequently inserting an ideology within the lines of the novel reflecting the struggles of

Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting uses the stream of consciousness technique to provide readers with the internal thoughts and feelings of seven different characters. The novel is written as a collection of short stories. The narration of these stories rotates through the cast of characters, each narrator defined by their own unique speech patterns and internal struggles. The short stories making up the novel are disjointed and nonlinear and as they lack the ability to connect to each other readers are not given any other point of reference to validate what they are being told.

Written at the turn of the 20th century, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle took place in an era of unprecedented advancement in civilization where the American economy had risen to become one of the wealthiest on the planet. However, Sinclair asserts that the rise of capitalist America resulted in the virulent corruption and competition that plighted society into an untamed “jungle.” Shown by the corruption of the Chicago meatpacking industry, Sinclair highlights the repulsive filth of human greed that was created as a byproduct of the economic boom. The effects of industrialism and the rise of untamed capitalism is what raped the superfluity of workers, like Jurgis Rudkus, of the opportunity to uncover prosperity in America. Not only does The Jungle capture the brutality and acceleration of corrupt capitalism and ruthless Darwinism during the Progressive Era, it also prompts resistance and displacement of the existing political system in favor of a socialist revolution. Through the novel, Sinclair demonstrates how the deterioration of the American Dream was exacerbated by the capitalist greed and corruption that eventually drove Jurgis and his family into mental degeneration and despair.

The working class in this film are forced to endure agonising labour in extremely dangerous environments whilst the upper class, the ‘sons’ are free to live at their will. The dystopic setting of the ‘depths’ becomes evident through Lang’s use of symbolism when the dictator’s son, Freder, journeys to the depths and starts to see the workers being eaten up by the machines in the scene ‘Slaves of the Means of Production” (14.58-17.52). This symbolises the dystopic society in which workers do not have the right to be safe. This idea forms a contextual connection to the 1920’s Weimar Republic where there were two distinct classes, the conservative elite, who were free to live at their will, and the workers who were forced to endure labour with no guarantee for safety. Through the contextual connections of political reform and the shared perspectives of dystopian societies the quote “the object of power is power” is strongly supported by George Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’.

In the words of Karl Marx, the founding father of Marxism, Marxism principally believes that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” In essence, Marx asserts that every day is a tale of conflict between society’s upper and lower class. While controversial in the real world, this notion is not far-fetched in the realm of literature. For example, Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” shows prominent signs of tension between classes. When examined from a Marxist perspective, Walker’s characters in “Everyday Use” highlight how each class values items and how survival needs and societal expectations differ among classes.

Zinn opens chapter with the recognition that “war and jingoism might postpone, but could not fully suppress, the class anger that came from the realities of ordinary life”.  Despite the brief interlude that momentarily quelled class conflict, the issues at home had never been resolved and resurfaced with a vengeance.  More and more writers were writing from a Socialist mindset:  Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906, as a commentary on Chicago’s meatpacking industry. In writing the book, Sinclair was influenced by writers like Jack London, a Socialist who had grown up in poverty in the Bay Area.  London publish The Iron Heel in 1906, warning Americans about fascism and indicts the capitalist system” In the face of the

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was the most impactful during its time. This book was written to portray Capitalism in a more realistic manner, to show how inhuman, brutal, and violent the unregulated economic system could be to those working in labor. Sinclair uses Jurgis’s family to prove the effects an unfair economic system has on the working class. During this period of industrial prosperity, immigrants came to America with total faith in the “American Dream”, that their hard work will be rewarded with wealth and stability. But they soon find out that this dream is as hollow and shallow as the hearts of the men they worked for. Sinclair proves how sinful Capitalism is, between selling meat coated in disease and forcing small children into

The plot structure not only forces people to reevaluate their views on capitalism, the American Dream, and opportunity itself, but furthermore advocates social change. The book implicitly suggests communist ideals through the characters of Tom and Casey. Casey, in his questioning of Christian dogma, begins to reevaluate equality, in the terminology of what is holy.

The book is far from a complete history and instead focuses on one specific sector of British history, the plight of the poor in early 20th century Manchester. Three main points seems to fight their way to the forefront, as they drive the direction and tone of the book. The first main point stressed is the elaborate and complex social stratification. Roberts says on the first page, "I grew up in what was perhaps an ideal

Written in 1996, Fight Club expresses the issues of its time with Palahniuk using a Marxist lens to express the evils of capitalist society in relation to loss of identity in a society built on achieving relative gains with those at the top benefiting at the expense of those at the bottom. The 1990s was a decade of excess , where people became fixated on consumerism, which, characterised the period as one of social disconnection, recklessness and greed , destroying moral values and widening the gap between classes, as financially the “top 1% were worth as much as the combined worth of the bottom 90%” . Through homodiegetic narration, Palahniuk voices his frustrations of the struggle of an individual against repression from a capitalist society through the persistence of consumerism.

The novel is set in the twenties, following World War I. The economy is booming, which is crucial for the ability to convey the themes of the American Dream and post-war moods. Set in New York City, the book opens in the West Egg, a new money part of the upper class neighborhoods.

In this paper, I will analyze the Marxist connections between Angela’s Ashes and a quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The memoir written by Frank McCourt, focuses on social class and economic issues endured by his family in America and Ireland. While analyzing McCourt’s memoir, I will pay attention to Marxist concepts including: alienation, religion, and revolution.

The novel was published during the time of industrialization. The United States, a country shaped by agriculture in the 19th century, became an industrialized nation in the late 1800s. Moreover, "an unprecedented influx of immigrants contributed to a boom in population," created bigger cities and a new consumer society. By these developments, progress was linked with poverty, illustrating that the majority of the US population was sceptical about the dependency on the fluctuation of global economy.

Jack London's The Iron Heel (1907) has been called "a small folk Bible of scientific socialism." Its historical relevance has been found to lie mostly in the introduction it provides to revolutionary thought and in its scientific predictions, rather than in its literary form. Even Trotsky, a not unsubtle literary critic, pointed out the exactness of London's predictions and defined the form of the fiction as nothing but a frame for its social analyses. Form would appear to be a kind of irrelevant "superstructure," an ornament and aid for uneducated readers. “The Iron Heel” is usually described as an early example of dystopian fiction. The book predicts a future in which the American working class has soundly defeated capitalism. For some modern