Exploring the Mechanical Life in Literature through Marxist Theory

Abstract

The Victorian Era of writings of works such as Charles Dickens Hard Times used the social and environmental setting by which the characters live in; it is created by a philosophy that adds fuel to sustain the advancement of industrialization. The philosophy mirrors the mechanical characteristics of industrialization and how they are expressed is of great importance to the mechanical perceptions, such as objective utilitarianism. The mechanization that is found in the lives of the characters has an evil presence of depriving them of human dignity by living a mechanical lifestyle. It was the mechanical lifestyle that can be explained through Marxist theory to explain the key characteristics of the Industrial Era and its importance to materialism, as it represented political power. Marxism provides a theory for requiring the working class to concentrate on working in factories in Coketown and the “bourgeois” to separate themselves as competing agents of self-interest. It is a goal of the wealthy social class to maximize utility as a consumer and profit as a producer within the mechanical world. Keywords: Victorian Era; Mechanical Thinking; Marxist Theory