In Marxist literary criticism, 'ideology' most accurately refers to:
AA political party's formal platform or manifesto.
BDeliberate propaganda consciously produced by the ruling class to deceive workers.
CThe naturalized system of beliefs and values that makes existing social arrangements appear inevitable, universal, or natural.
DAny strong set of political convictions held by a writer or character.
The Althusserian conception of ideology, which is central to Marxist literary criticism, is not about conscious deception — it operates through the 'lived relation' people have to their conditions of existence. Literature is ideological precisely because it often presents bourgeois values (individual striving, private property, romantic love as transcendent) as simply 'human nature,' without any apparent political intention. This is more powerful than propaganda because it is invisible.
Question 2 True / False
A novel written by a working-class author about working-class characters will necessarily challenge bourgeois ideology.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
This is a key misconception that equates authorial biography or thematic content with ideological effect. Marxist critics from Macherey to Jameson argue that the ideological function of a text is determined by how it formally resolves (or fails to resolve) the social contradictions it raises. A novel can sympathize with workers while still resolving their struggle through individual upward mobility — a resolution that reinforces rather than challenges the dominant ideology.
Question 3 Short Answer
Explain the base-superstructure model and describe how it shapes what questions a Marxist critic asks when approaching a literary text.
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: The base is the economic structure of society — modes of production and class relations. The superstructure includes culture, law, religion, and art, which are shaped by (and in turn help reproduce) the base. A Marxist critic therefore asks: Under what economic conditions was this text produced? What class relations does it represent or obscure? Whose interests does its ideological framework serve? How does it naturalize or contest existing arrangements?
The base-superstructure model directs critical attention away from purely formal or aesthetic analysis toward the text's embeddedness in historical and economic conditions. Later theorists (Williams, Gramsci) complicated the strict determination model by arguing for the relative autonomy of culture and the importance of hegemony — the way dominant ideology is actively maintained through consent as well as coercion.