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Karl marxs understanding of society
Karl Marx's influence on society
Karl marxs understanding of society
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Fritz Lang’s film, Metropolis, portrays various themes on modernity; the film illustrates Karl Marx’s ideology of Marxism and the struggles between the bourgeoisie and the working class, as well as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which emphasizes the consequences of being committed to accomplish one’s personal interests rather than for the greater good. Other modern values, such Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, expresses the distinctions between males and females in society and the belief that women are to attain the same equal treatment as men civilly, politically, and economically. The film uses these ideologies throughout the storyline and presents the audience several themes and values that have and are still questioned today. Metropolis profoundly relies on Karl Marx’s theory of Marxism, which describes the necessities of having a working class as part of a social …show more content…
He altered the plan and chose to use the machine as a weapon against Fredersen’s son instead. In this, one can see how Rotwang dismisses any respect he should show towards Maria by forcibly grabbing her ankle as she sought to escape his grasp. Once he does finally capture her, he constructs a machine that imitates her outer appearance, and controls her actions and instructs it to do as he tells it. Rotwang did this only to meet his own desires -- to use the power over his creation as vengeance. In this film, females are depicted as tools that men can use to relieve their own needs and plans. This shows that men are the dominant sex in this society, and women, or in other words, the slaves, must serve, obey, and depend on these men. In Wollstonecraft’s work, this is the “dominance” that she had explained was happening between men and women, and that this occurrence must be abolished to create an equal stance for
Many timeless novels have impacts on our everyday culture, not only as a book, but also through music or movies. Many popular novels have multiple adaptations, which shape how we approach their interpretation, in ways we may never even notice. In some films, humans are depicted as monsters, whether through their actions, or through the thoughts of other beings. In these films we find issues with our own society, and in turn see ourselves as monsters, and look for ways we can change, for the better. One particular novel that influences this side of Hollywood is Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein”. The ways Frankenstein influences pop culture can be seen in science fiction films in which humans are depicted as monster, and “monsters” are seen as more humane beings, such as I, Robot, and Ender’s Game.
The robot was seen as a creation of technology and femininity and sexuality through the male imagination. This creation of the robot was to reflect the fear that men have of women and of technology. Women, machines, and nature raise fear in men because they threaten the male dominance and control. The female robot rose fear about threatening male control because of the idea that technology could become so large and advanced that it would go out of control of man and destroy humanity. Maria also posed as a threat to Frederson because of her emotions and nurturing. As seen in the movie, the scene where Rotwang leads Frederson down to the catacombs to watch Maria preach about peace is a direct depiction of the male fear of femininity. This fear comes from Frederson not having any control over this situation because he did not know about the catacombs, which scares him. Men need to control these women because of these insecurities about their own dominance.
Fritz Lang's Metropolis is a very powerful movie with various underlying meanings that allow the viewer to determine for himself. The movie itself is extremely difficult and hard to follow, although the essay "The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang's Metropolis" written by Andreas Huyssen provided many helpful insights to aid in understanding the movie. Many of Huyssen's idea's are a bit extreme, but none the less the essay is very beneficial. His extreme views include ideas of castration and how it relates with the female robot, and sexulaity and how it relates technology. Although these ideas are extreme he does also provide many interesting ideas.
Ruppert, Peter. “Technology and the Constructions of Gender in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” (2000) [Accessed 18 December 2012]
When one gets down to the roots of capitalism you find that it is a form of government that allows the rich to get richer, the poor, poorer and the middle class to stay the same. Karl Marx wrote a book, Kapital about the what capitalism does to the people in a society, how it takes the humainty out of being and replaces it with x. Not only does it do that but it creates a chain of commodities, fetishisis, and alienation within a society.
In feminist literary theory, it claims that Frankenstein’s act of creation is not only a sin against God and nature. It is also an act against the “female principle” which includes natural procreation as one of its central aspects. The monster, the result of male arrogance, is the enemy and destroyer of the eternal female principle.
In “Frankenstein” penned by Mary Shelley, one cannot help but notice the role of women in the novel compared to men. Even though Mary Shelley is the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, a mother advocating for women’s rights in society, she displays the roles of Caroline, Elizabeth, and Justine as passive women. This may be the time period when women were considered inferior to men. Caroline, Elizabeth, and Justine are depicted as possessions by men, admired for their superficial beauty, and do not take action without the permission of men. On the other hand, Shelley illustrates Safie as a woman who speaks up for her own rights when her father forbids her to find Felix.
In her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley explores a wide range of themes concerning human nature through the thoughts and actions of two main characters and a host of others. Two themes are at the heart of the story, the most important being creation, but emphasis is also placed on alienation from society. These two themes are relevant even in today’s society as technology brings us ever closer to Frankenstein’s fictional achievement.
Many women like those in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein suffer from inequality and oppression. Many women are treated like property and are deprived of rights that men have. The women are murdered and created in Shelley’s novel to represent how quickly women can be replaced. Women are clearly presented in the novel as classless individuals who are forced to comply as submissive beings living under the wing of man, the dominant leader in Frankenstein society.
In conclusion, in Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein, the female characters always fulfill the limited and archetypical roles that are set for them by society. In this novel, many female characters are considered to be possessions. In fact, they are considered to be the servants of men. “I have a pretty present for my Victor—tomorrow he shall have it.” (Mary Shelly, Pg. 70)
Within Frankenstein, the level at which a female is portrayed is quite low. Like we have heard in class, women were not necessarily respected as much as men were when the novel was written. Published in 1818 by Mary Shelley, her story tells of the adventure of young Victor Frankenstein and the creation of his creature. Though deep within this narration of Frankenstein’s life, there seems to be an underlying theme seeping through Shelley’s writing. Shelley seems to venture into the idea of feminism and grotesquely show how men are treated much better than women. Her novel includes various concrete examples to support this hypothesis.
Inspired by the works of Karl Marx, V.I. Lenin nonetheless drew his ideology from many other great 19th century philosophers. However, Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” was immensely important to the success of Russia under Leninist rule as it started a new era in history. Viewed as taboo in a capitalist society, Karl Marx started a movement that would permanently change the history of the entire world. Also, around this time, the Populist promoted a doctrine of social and economic equality, although weak in its ideology and method, overall. Lenin was also inspired by the anarchists who sought revolution as an ultimate means to the end of old regimes, in the hope of a new, better society. To his core, a revolutionary, V.I. Lenin was driven to evoke the class struggle that would ultimately transform Russia into a Socialist powerhouse. Through following primarily in the footsteps of Karl Marx, Lenin was to a lesser extent inspired by the Populists, the Anarchists, and the Social Democrats.
Victor Frankenstein dedicates and determines himself to individually create life, something unnatural to the human way of life. Abandonment and the lack of a nurturing mother leads to his regret and desire to commit infanticide. Steven Marcus correctly discusses in his article how feminists (especially) believe that Frankenstein provides a cautionary tale involving the dangers that result from masculine desires to create, as well as to nurture and raise, in the absence of a woman. While proven by Victor’s eagerness in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Steven Marcus’ article, as well as modern society, analyzes the patriarchal scientific drive to usurp female procreative power, resulting in consequential struggles for the child involved in the situation.
Foremost is the polarization of classes; the film depicts a sprawling city where hundreds of thousands of people could live, however we only see the lives of a few of this people, namely the magnates and their workers. While multiple classes could exist, Lang only shows the two, emphasizing that society in Metropolis is comprised of two diametrically opposed classes like Marx and Engels depict in The Communist Manifesto, “Society has a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps” (220). The class struggles in the film are not nearly overt as Marx and Engels depict; they cannot be because the magnates and workers are physically separated. However, Frederson indicates that for months he has been finding evidence of plans of a rebellion in his workers’ clothes, and when given the chance, the workers show no hesitation in revolting against the machine. When the workers do revolt, instead of storming the upper city where the magnates reside, they destroy the machines which keep them alive, as Marx and Engels foretold, “[t]hey direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves” (CM 228). There are some discrepancies, however for the most part, until the end of the film where the workers and magnates reconcile, Marx and
According to Marx and Engels theory of history, “The unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their [the proletariat’s] livelihood more and more precarious” (CM 229). In Metropolis the machines make the workers lives more precarious, but not because they take the place of the worker, forcing them to seek ever more precarious employment. In human history, the function of a machine has been to automate a task or to make a job easier, but the machines of Metropolis require perpetual attention from the workers and seem to make their jobs harder rather than easier. To many critics, the machines of Metropolis were pointless and only served as a plot device. Lang’s perceived misrepresentation of machinery drew criticism from social progressives for misrepresenting the real issue, what Marx and Engels see as the issue with bourgeoisie society, and that is the exploitation of other human beings (Elasser 43). Conversely, conservatives saw the film as advocating the class-struggle; it seems that every political party had a different view of the film. Despite its seemingly anti-bourgeois-capitalist rhetoric, German communists decried the film’s adage that the mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart. Some found the message to be hypocritical, that Lang would suggest such an idea when the film he created was funded by the sort capitalist exploitation he warned against. In the months following the film’s release, journalist Felix Ziege