Marxist Literary Criticism

All types of literary criticism have been used to help readers receive intuition about a literary work that they have read or are going to read; they are used to help the reader understand the themes and symbols that they might not have known without a particular type of criticism. The Marxist literary criticism is used when one wants to view a book, or other form of literature, in terms of the role that social classes play in the book as well as the role of the class and beliefs of the author and of the time period (Burris). When viewing a literary piece through the Marxist criticism, one must ask about what class the work claims to represent, what value it agrees with or disagree with, what social classes do the characters of the work represent, …show more content…
Throughout the book, the difference between the lower and higher classes’ cultures is extremely evident. For example, Miss Watson and Widow Douglas think they’re better than Huck just because they have religion instead of superstitions, good posture instead of bad posture, or fresh air instead of air from a pipe. Pap thinks he’s better than Jim for the simple yet idiotic reason that he is white, but that doesn’t make it true. However, they are in different social classes, and they each represent their social classes and different types of people within them. Huckleberry Finn represents the lower social class who wants to stay in the lower social class, and this is shown by his want to stay the way he is and not be civilized. However, he still has money, but he never uses it which further implies that he likes who he is. Jim represents the slaves and their want to be free from bondage and slavery. He talks of escape and rescuing his family after he arrived in the northern states, and how he was rich one day, and he’ll be rich again; what this says about him is that he was willing to fight for his freedom rather than lay back and be enslaved. Both Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas represent the upper middle class …show more content…
Freedom and equality were what Mark Twain wanted to bring to society by writing this book. Yes, he satirizes it to the point where it’s barely noticeable, but it is there. These values show up as the story progresses as Huck begins to see Jim as his equal throughout the book. Their relationship first starts as that of slave and slave-owner, but as Huck becomes closer to Jim and realizes that he is in fact a human being not much different from himself shows that people and society can change and not be super awful. Mark Twain was not trying to change the world at all: In fact, he said that anyone that tries to find any sort of moral or theme in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, they would be prosecuted, shot, and banished. What Mark Twain was trying to do was, for one thing, make a living, and show that values that he condoned and did not