Class Conflict in Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews

Abstract

The basis of this paper is a research project that studies the struggle between classes in Henry Fielding's novel Joseph Andrews. It has been carried out during the second semester of the academic year 2019-2020 at the College of Science and Humanities, Hotat Bani Tamim, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Since the issue of classes and class struggle dominates almost all aspects of life, it is natural to consider the importance of this phenomenon in literature, especially through theories that view literature as a reflection of real life. The most suitable school of literary criticism to tackle such a subject, according to the authors, is that of Marxism. Two basic Marxist principles are at the center of the study: class conflict and the notion of base and superstructure. The novel is studied as part of the superstructure which is a reflection of the ongoing class conflict occurring at the base mainly between feudal landlords and peasants. Three main questions have been addressed: 1) Is the novel a mere perpetuation of the upper class ideology and interests? 2) Is it a subversion of that ideology? or 3) Does it signify both a perpetuation of a class-structured society while condemning the negative aspects of the dominant ideology? The study reaches the conclusion that while Fielding favors a perpetuation of the already existing social order, he, nevertheless, levels bitter criticism at various upper class beliefs and practices that hinder the advancement of poor class causes.

Totalitarianism and Class Warfare in George Orwell’s Animal Farm

“…Marxist criticism considers literary works as reverberations of the ongoing social struggles at the base. Therefore one of the aims of Marxist literary criticism is to critique class struggle in texts by answering questions about whether a given text serves 1) to preserve and maintain the ruling class ideology, 2) to disrupt and destabilize that ideology, or 3) to suggest both a perpetuation of a class-structured society while condemning the negative aspects of the existing state of affairs (Saoudi et al, 2020).…”