The Marxist/ Economic lens serves to promote economic change such as overcoming capitalism and those with the power of wealth as well as incorporating the roles of money, politics, and power in literature. It emphasizes that literary works are a product of the economic and social conditions of either its time or the time the story is set to where it has been utilized most on books and drama where the influences of the time period remain much more prevalent (Brizee). Used to portray ways of how certain forces chose to allocate power between groups, the lens incorporates class conflicts as well as the preference of materialism over spirituality (DiYanni 2173). In Tim O’ Brien’s The Things They Carried, The Marxist/Economic lens gives insight into class differences in American society and economic powers of the Vietnam War relating to the struggles of the young soldiers had to face firsthand before, during, and even after the war.
The means of production translates to the soldiers who are fighting the war (truly control and suffer through the fighting), but the ones calling the shots are the leaders of these nations that have decided to go on with war. The bourgeoisie are the leaders, the elite who dictate the major decisions of war, while the soldiers serve as the proletariat, a mass of men who are mostly drafted and compelled to fight on the orders and rules of these leaders, aka bourgeoisie (Polukis).
The media play a role through the encouragement of the government, broadcasting these ‘lottery systems’, interviewing and extensively going over the new news reports of the drafts. Additionally, the war is practically broadcast to the American public (Polukis). All around there is a sense of romanticism in society’s perspective o...
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...oppressively on people and kept the masses from succeeding against overcoming the rule of the American government. As the lens implies, the disagreement in the political system came from having different gains and risks for the people and the government. Looking at the country macro economically, the country went through with war. Individually, however, a mass of conflicting opinions arose that made the Vietnam War a convoluted and complex topic, but one that went along with the decisions of the leaders who followed through with the war instead of the people, who were unclear and full of doubt about the war. While paying for the war, the American people were the ones also sending their children to sacrifice their lives, where the soldiers that got drafted were obligated to go to a war that a majority of Americans did not support or fully understand (Polukis).
Every business can operate because of five essential parts; Product creation, Marketing, Sales, Finance, and Delivery of your Product. Throughout this essay we will be juxtaposing the different aspects of the parts above and showing how each of them relate to capitalism and communism and how each of the essential parts can be shown differently through both capitalism and communism. Business varies extremely when in different environments and these two environments are drastically different and the most different environments that are possible. This essay will help understand how drastic the differences really are between the two markets.
The dramatic realization of the fact that the war will affect a member of the Chance family is apparent in this quote. The amount of sorrow and emotions felt by the Chance family, and for that matter, all families who had children, brothers, husbands, or fathers, drafted into what many felt was a needless war. The novel brings to life what heartache many Americans had to face during the Vietnam era, a heartache that few in my generation have had the ability to realize.
A war starting was really overwhelming for everybody but there was not time to complain, but to take actions the government quickly realized that with men fighting in the front line a demand had to be satisfied. Political and social leaders ...
Another unique aspect to this book is the constant change in point of view. This change in point of view emphasizes the disorder associated with war. At some points during the book, it is a first person point of view, and at other times it changes to an outside third person point of view. In the first chapter of the book, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien writes, “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity (2).
In today's society, there are many forces that shape the world. Three forces that have a major impact are Capitalism, Globalization, and the Natural Environment. These forces all play major roles in either influencing or informing my lived experiences.
Karl Marx, Adam Smith and Andrew Carnegie came up with various perspectives on how capitalism could be improved or changed for the betterment of society.
Critiques of social contract theories abound, even including criticisms from social contract theorists themselves, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. John Locke’s social contract theory remains one of the prominent theories to this day, and includes the idea that a thing owned in common can be obtained by adding one’s labor to it. Critics of social contract theories aren’t simply seeking to negate the theories of social contract theories, but in many cases are seeking to enhance them and show how they can be applied to certain principles. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is one critic of social contract theory, who begins his work with an alternative to foundational state of nature conjectures used by social contract theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Karl Marx then critiques and refines Locke’s work to fit his purpose, while using Hegel’s theories to supplement his work. Marx uses Hegel’s “lord and bondage” critique to utilize Locke’s social contract theory from a different perspective; Marx alters the reason why Locke’s theory of property is important.
In The Origin of Capitalism, Ellen Wood addresses misconceptions about the origin of Capitalism. In addition to challenging the naturalization of Capitalism, she draws attention to specific social forms and the particular ways in which Capitalism departs from them. Wood reviews John Locks’s Second Treatise of Government, which brings a new and revolutionary attitude towards property by turning the acquisition of property into a moral calling and associating it with dignity. She sees Locke as a prophet of Capitalism, arguing that Locke’s doctrine led to value added becoming a strong argument for expansion and annexation. Specifically, it is in the fifth chapter that Locke discusses property. Locke begins with the original condition of nature, in which the creation of property is through the labor of one's body and the work of one's hands. Labor is, for Locke, the source of all value and our title to ownership. Human labor, not nature is the source of property and of acquisition. Moreover, by the end of that chapter, there is the creation of a sophisticated market economy with various inequalities of wealth and property, within the state of nature. With a series of shifts, Locke neutralizes the radical discourses of property of his time; although natural law clearly has democratic implications, Locke, in effect, excludes people from the system by restricting the rights of commoners.
The novel, “The Things They Carried”, is about the experiences of Tim O’Brian and his fellow platoon members during their time fighting in the Vietnam War. They face much adversity that can only be encountered in the horrors of fighting a war. The men experience death of friends, civilians, enemies and at points loss of their rationale. In turn, the soldiers use a spectrum of methods to cope with the hardships of war, dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions all allow an escape from the horrors of Vietnam that they experience most days.
Of all the literary lenses, one would not think that feminism would be a prevalent topic in a war novel. In Tim O’Brien’s iconic book, The Things They Carried, the idea that women were just as important as men acts an important theme, however from a different perspective. Movies and epic war stories tell of the heroic actions of the World’s finest: bulky men with an appetite for battle. Yet, there always lied a backbone. Comfort, inspiration, ease, all things that women provided to soldiers during any war. Yet, sometimes things did not go as planned and rash actions were made. O’Brien’s masterful use of lenses creates an interesting novel, one that will stand the test of time, however, the aspects of the feminist lens provides much insight into the inner lying meanings of the book, mostly in the areas of characters, objects of importance, and the role of gender in the Vietnam War.
In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, numerous themes are illustrated by the author. Through the portrayal of a number of characters, Tim O’Brien suggests that to adapt to Vietnam is not always more difficult than to revert back to the lives they once knew. Correspondingly the theme of change is omnipresent throughout the novel, specifically in the depiction of numerous characters.
The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, a period of political turmoil in Europe. Its meaning in today’s capitalistic world is a very controversial issue. Some people, such as the American government, consider socialism taboo and thus disregard the manifesto. They believe that capitalism, and the world itself, has changed greatly from the one Marx was describing in the Manifesto and, therefore, that Marx’s ideas cannot be used to comprehend today’s economy. Others find that the Manifesto highlights issues that are still problematic today. Marx’s predicative notions in the Communist Manifesto are the key to understanding modern day capitalism.
Karl Marx, father of Marxism, was born May 5th, 1818 in Germany. He is the world’s most renowned philosopher, journalist, economist and sociologist. He has published many articles but the theory of capitalism is possibly one of the most provoking theories in all of sociology. Marx saw capitalism to be eventually followed by socialism during its long progressive historical stage. Marx’s theory of capitalism is underlined in his works, “Das Kapital”. Marx argues that the significant trait behind capitalism is the force it exerts over labor. In Marx’s view, the dynamic of capitalism will eventually lead to revolution by the working class.
Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried, expresses his journey throughout the Vietnam War via a series of short stories. The novel uses storytelling to express the emotional toll the men encountered, as well as elucidate their intense experiences faced during the war. The literary theory, postmodernism, looks at these war experiences and questions their subjectivity, objectivity, and truth in a literary setting. It allows the reader to look through a lens that deepens the meaning of a work by looking past what is written and discovering the various truths. O’Brien used the storytelling process to illustrate the bleeding frame of truth. Through his unique writing style, he articulates the central idea of postmodernism to demonstrate the
A free-market gives way to power and control to a certain group of individuals at the top of economic system, which results in inequality. The inequality sets the working class at a disadvantage because there is minimal to no intervention in protecting the workers. Karl Marx claimed that capitalism exploited the working class, which would eventually alienate the individual in a work setting, from himself, and humanity. In order to deter further alienation and exploitation of workers, Marx figured that the working class had to think alike in ordinance to the problem of a capitalist system to agree that social change was necessary.