Marxist Criticism vs.Liberal Humanism

Marxist Criticism assumes that before the writer - let's call him Ricardo - even begins to write, his novel is already partially determined. One might ask, How can that be? How can a blank page be fated? According to this theory, Ricardo feels as if he is free from any social context, but in fact, he is unconsciously molded by his social status. And these unconscious notions inevitably come out in his writing. So, the blank page before him will soon be filled with what he freely wills, yet it will be inescapably tinted by his unconscious feelings about his social circumstances.

In opposition to this theory is Liberal Humanism, which assumes that Ricardo can freely write his novel without any interference from outside contexts. The underlying meanings of his novel have nothing to do with his social status (unless, of course, he chooses this). And as readers, we don't need to have knowledge of Ricardo's life in order to understand what he has written about. All we need is to study the novel itself.

I believe that neither theory is entirely correct. There is truth in both, and it really depends on the specific text you're studying whether one theory is more applicable than another. So, in Ricardo's case, it may very well be true that his social status as a lower middle class immigrant (he moved here from Cuba when he was ten) clearly influences the thoughts and actions of the characters in his novel. However, if Susie goes to write her novel, and does so with a self-conscious desire to create characters dissimilar to herself, it would be a waste of time trying to analyze her novel through a Marxist lens.

The main point here is that there are different ways to interpret a text, and sometimes one works better than another - but it all depends on the specific text being studied. There is no one, exclusive, ultimate way to interpret every text in the world...unless that way is broad enough to encompass every other theory, and allows overlap, flexibility, and freedom of interpretation. But I guess that would defeat the purpose of having a specific way to analyze a text.

Intro

My name is Robbie Guastella. This is my first blog ever, so I don't know much about how this all works. This blog will be about the various topics in Critical Theory, which I think is pretty interesting. Each different way to intepret literature has its own logic and persuasiveness, meaning that there is no correct intepretation. This shows how layered and complex a text really is, and how much power an author really wields. I think it's going to be a challenging, yet eye-opening experience applying these theories to different texts.