Exploring Ron Rush's Novel 'Serena' through Marxist Criticism

Generally, in industrial activity, the factors of production are needed in producing goods and services. Eyiyere argues that the factors of production are nature, labor and capital. Labor is an active resource which is one of the factors in the smoothness of a production process. Workers in their activity should be supported by good, human forms of management work so that they can work well. However, in reality, many employers exploit their workers. Exploitation of one social class by another is seen in industrial capitalism. Capitalist society is confronted by an economic contradiction that shapes the class distinction and creates class conflicts. Isaac also maintains that the relations between the social classes are relations of power, where the capitalist class has power over the working class. Labor is not considerate as equal partners, but an object for capitalist’s interest. The economic and power contradiction between the social classes has caused the exploitation of labor, where the capitalist treats labor unjustly for his own advantage. Labor exploitation is happened because in capitalist society, the means of production are privately owned by a minority of the members of society who tend to employ these means in such a way to maximize the profit. In capitalist system, the capitalist search for higher profit. Private property gives power to the capitalist and allows him to use his labor to obtain more profit and wealth. The above questions also appear in literary works, since literature reflects human life or the attitude of society. Wellek and Werren states that literature is mirror or expression of life. Based on the illustration of the background above, the aim of this research is to describe the class distinction in the capitalist society depicted in the novel ‘Serena’ by Ron Rash, as well as the exploitation of work in the capitalist system.

Literature Review

Character is the important element in a story because it drives the story. The character is a person in the literary work who has the identity which consists by their appearance, conversation, action and name to represent a massage. From the statements above, character is person or other creature as human being in narrative work, who has identity and moral quality as expressed in their dialogue and action. When talking about character, it also talks about characterization. Character refers to people in history, while characterization is features of character. Gill explains that characterization is the way a character is created in the story. It important in literature, because it helps the reader to reveal what the characters are like. There are two features in characterization, which are revealing and show characterization. In telling characterization, the narrator directly tells readers what the character is like. The information about the character conveys trough the narrator’s opinion, while in showing characterization, the reader needs to conclude and gather information throughout the novel in order to understand what the character is like (Gill). This means that the author indirectly shows the traits of character in various ways and makes the reader interpret the traits of character itself. Gill further explains that there are some ways in which a character emerges in showing characterization. They are character’s speech, think, the appearance, dress, the social standing, the name and action.

Marxist Criticism

Marxist criticism is a theory of analytical literature that examines questions of economic and social class. As Abrams explains, the Marxist analyses social groupings, relations and modes of thought that are largely determined by the changing mode of material production. From the definition, Marxist criticism analysis and critique of the class-relations within society that shaped by the development of production system which is capitalism. Historically, Marxism is a social, economic and political theory based on the writings of German philosophers Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). Their work ‘The Communist Manifesto’ (1848) explains about the principle of communism and critics the capitalism, this crisis culminates in the proletarian revolution and eventually led to the understanding of capitalism replaced with communism, without social class and human based on common ownership. From this view, initially Marxism was not designed as a method of literary analysis. Marxism is the manifestation of Marx against capitalism to make the fight of the working class heard.

Research Method

This research used descriptive qualitative research as the method. Qualitative research is characterized by its aims, which relate to understanding some aspect of social life, and its methods, which (in general) generate words, rather than numbers, as data for analysis. Regarding to definition above, this research plan was appropriate for this research because the researcher analyzed the social question, which was the class exploitation contained in the novel ‘Serena’. This research also used Marxist approach to analyze the novel. Marxist criticism seeks to depict inequalities in the social classes, the imbalance of goods and power among men, or the manipulation of the worker by the bourgeoisie. By using Marxist approach, this research analyzed the class exploitation, which was the manipulation of worker by the bourgeoisie and also the form of imbalance in economic and power among classes in society.

Data and Data Source

The data of this research are dialog and narration in the form of words, sentences, sentences and paragraphs of the novel ‘Serena’ written by Ron Rash. The primary data source is the novel, which published by Canon Gate Book in 2010. And the secondary data source are some references such as books, journals and articles, undergraduate thesis or other Internet sources.

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Data Collection

The researcher did some steps in collecting the data. The first was the attentive reading of the novel 'Serena' by the scholar to understand the meaning of history. The second was to read some related references from books, journals, articles, and essays or other Internet resources. The third was to take some important notes of words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs that contain information relating to the issue in this research, those were class distinction and labor exploitation.

Discussion

The first social class that was reflected in the novel ‘Serena’ was the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie referred to the superior class, which possessed the means of production (e.g., nature, tools, finances) and controlled the economy and the proletariat. As the domination class, they had domination in wealth and power. In ‘Serena’ can be found when the author describes about one of character named Serena in the following narration: “Pemberton knew other aspects of Serena's appearance helped foster Buchanan and Wilkie's obvious surprise: pants and boots instead of a dress and cloche hat, sun-bronzed skin that belied Serena's social class, lips and cheeks untainted by rouge, hair blonde and thick but cut short in a bob, distinctly feminine yet also austere”. Serena’s class portrayed trough the social standing of character, which meant character’s social environment like family and economic status was illustrated. In the novel, Serena did not wear a dress, bell hat, red on her lips and cheeks like other upper-class women and he denied her social class. She was a woman of the upper class or the bourgeoisie, but he just refuted her appearance.

Another social class that was reflected in the novel ‘Serena’ was the proletariat. The proletariat was the working class who was controlled or being dominated by the bourgeoisie because their life depended on wages given by the bourgeoisie. Workers were in subordinate position in society, because they were poor, powerless. This novel illustrated about the contras of life of the two social classes, in making money or fulfilling their daily needs. When the bourgeoisie had means of production and labor to create its riches, different from the proletarians who had only their labor force.

Furthermore, in the novel we can see that the employer benefited from the oppressive nature of capitalism, gained large amounts of wealth from their lumber company. During the Great Depression, a time when the American people endured incredible economic misery, many people out of work. The upper social classes benefited greatly because the workers produced their wealth out of the hard work the workers did. They exploited the worker by forcing them to work excessive hours a day or long time working.

Conclusion

In summary, the novel ‘Serena’ by Ron Rash represented two types of class awards. They were the bourgeoisie as the owner and the proletariat as labor or worker. The social class of each character could be indicated by their economic and power. The two social classes were depicted by the character's discourse, action, thought, dress and appearance, and social character status. The bourgeoisie were Pemberton and his wife, Serena, and their associates Buchanan and Wilkie. The characters who belong to the proletariat referred to the workers.