Exploration of Class Conflict and Economic Exploitation: A Marxist Critique of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge

Abstract

Marxism highlights the importance of literature that centers on the struggles and aspirations of the working classes. This study offers a Marxist analysis of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, examining the novel through the theoretical framework propounded by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and their successors. Employing a hermeneutic and interpretive research design, the study investigates the dynamics of class struggle, economic determinism, and ideological power structures embedded within the social fabric of the narrative. The research explores how economic forces divide society into dominant and subordinate classes, shaping characters’ behavior, relationships, and moral choices. It demonstrates that the ruling industrial and capitalist class strives to sustain its economic dominance through exploitation, manipulation, and ideological control, while the working class remains entrapped in conditions of poverty and dependency. Through its exposure of class oppression, economic exploitation, and moral corruption, Hardy’s (1886) novel reflects the structural inequalities inherent in capitalist society. This study contributes to Marxist literary criticism by foregrounding the interplay between economic base and social superstructure in the text and provides a foundation for future research on class ideology in Hardy’s works and other Victorian novels.