Marxist Criticism vs. the Liberal Humanist Perspective

While Marxist criticism emphasizes the idea that socio-economic status and the ideology of a given culture greatly influence a writer's literary work, one of the ten tenets of liberal humanism claims that a text embodies its own meaning and is not dependent on outside forces. According to Marxism, an individual is constantly shaped by outside forces, one of the strongest being their social class. Although an individual may be unaware of the hold that their social class has on them as a person, it may be unintentionally seen through their writing on the basis of content, style, diction, syntax, and dialect. In contrast to this idea, one of the ten tenets of liberal humanism says that a text does not have to be put in any particular context- We do not have to look to the writer for hidden meanings, because the literary work demonstrates the height of its value and meaning all by itself. Personally I do not agree with this particular tenet of liberal humanism, and tend to fall more toward the idea of Marxist criticism when it comes to reading and analyzing a text. With my experience studying Literature so far I have always felt as though the writer of a certain work makes a major, personal imprint on what he or she is writing, whether it be big or small. Before I start reading a certain literary work I always like to read the author's biography beforehand, so that I can get a sense of where the writer is coming from. Although sometimes the author's life may have little to no relevance concerning the content of the text, the author's identity behind the text is still declared in the words he or she wrote, and is therefore a significant angle of looking at the text and its meaning. I think that a writer's social class is reflective in his or her own personal writing style. For example, a writer who comes from an upper-middle class may choose different diction to describe an object than would a writer who comes from a lower class. One particular literary work that I believe demonstrates the affect that outside forces have on a writer's writing is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath's own personal life and the social class she belonged to are significant factors consistent within the novel. In the novel, the main character, Esther Greenwood, experiences a breakdown as she interns for a fashion magazine in New York City. The fact that the character in her novel is a college student on internship, is an aspect that validates the character's own social class in society, as well as the writer who produced the work. Because The Bell Jar was highly autobiographical, looking toward the writer's life as one who was raised in the upper-middle class and had the opportunity to receive a good education, allows the readers of the text to gain a more insightful sense of the given character at hand. In all, I intently agree with the Marxist view, because outside forces are the genuine base of an individual's personality and writing style.