Karl Marx

...

In the start of the book when Carrie meets Drouet, she shows her tendency of her material grasp of the world. On the train where they first come in to contact, the thing she first noticed were his clothes. “Good clothes, of course, were the first essential, the things without which he was nothing” (Dreiser) It is a sign that Carrie takes appearance in to a lot of consideration because that what makes a man look valuable in her eye.

In the story Carrie looks upon the rich people with envy of everything they have. She was consumed with the thought of being wealthy and obtaining wealth in any form. “A flame of envy lighted in her heart. She realised in a dim way how much the city held—wealth, fashion, ease —every adornment for women, and she longed for dress and beauty with a whole heart” In a way Carrie has a similar obsession with material things just like Lily in The House of Mirth.

Carrie sees Drouet as a way up the social ladder and finds a financial comfort in being with him. Later in turn she does the same thing with Hurstwood. Carries travel up the totem pole from lower middle class to a wealthy actress shows the different roles she goes through from management to capital. In a way, she is the constant bourgeoisie by feeding off her hard working companions to feed her greed and her materialistic life style. Her power is in the lust that these two individuals have for her and she persuades them to help her achieve wealth.

“Many of the central characters in Sister Carrie are acting according to the capitalist pressures in their urban society. It should be noted that one of the main features of naturalism is that it is usually set in an urban landscape.” (Smith) Carrie in the story seems to be pressured by the aristocratic people in the urban environment. She feels ashamed because she is poor and does not have much to flaunt like the people around her. Carrie is different between the other two characters by the purpose they have for each other.

Carrie seems to manipulate Drouet and Hurstwood just for her advancements. “Money and capital are responsible for the actions of humans rather than the more “pure” forces that regulated the lives of characters in realist texts.” (Smith) People do not seem to act on their feelings towards others but on the drive to obtain more money or capital. A person’s value is determined by how much money he or she has and the more money a person has, the more powerful and respectable he or she is in the eyes of other people. Therefore, in society everybody seems to care more about financial and material aspects of life.

Another story we read that does not necessarily deal on the economic side of Marxism but on the division of power is Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat”. “The Open Boat'' starts out with a description of men aboard a small boat on a choppy sea. There are four survivors on the boat from a previous shipwreck. First is the cook, who is bailing water out of the bottom of the boat; the oiler, a physically strong man named Billie who is rowing with one oar; the unnamed correspondent, who is rowing with the other oar. Last is the captain, who lies injured in the bottom of the boat. Each man stares intently at the waves which threaten to overcome the boat. A few characteristics become obvious about each man: the cook is the most talkative of the four; the oiler, reserved and an adept seaman. The captain is profoundly sorrowful at the loss of his ship and the potential loss of life along with it. The correspondent remains pretty much undefined.

The captain briefly expresses doubt about their chances of survival, but then reassures the men that ‘‘we'll get ashore all right.'' (Crane) The captain is the first to spot a barely visible lighthouse and they know they are approaching shore. The captain improvises a sail using his overcoat and an oar to give the oiler and correspondent a chance to rest, but when the wind dies they resume rowing. Unwilling to risk running the boat ashore in the rough surf, the men wait to be spotted by the lighthouse rescue crew.

The lighthouse appears deserted. The men discuss rowing toward land and swimming through the surf once the boat inevitably capsizes in the rougher water closer to shore. They know that they will only grow weaker as more time passes. They exchange thoughts in case they do not all live through the ordeal. The narrator offers some reflections not attributed to any of the men in specific about how unjust it would be to die after coming so far.

The four men spend a cold night rowing steadily toward distant lights. While the correspondent is rowing alone, a large shark cruises in the vicinity of the boat. Thoughts of drowning plague the crew. They agonize privately over the injustice of their situation: "If I am going to be drowned... why... was I allowed to come thus far?'' (Crane)

The correspondent clings to a piece of a lifejacket and paddles slowly, thinking of the vast distance he has yet to cross. The injured captain clings to the stern of the overturned boat, which is pushed toward the beach by the strong surf. A wave tosses the correspondent over the boat and into waist deep water, but he is too weak to even stand up. Suddenly, a man appears on shore, stripping off his clothes and running into the water. The rescuer drags the cook to safety and then approaches the captain, who waves him away to help the correspondent first. Billie, the oiler, is face down in the shallow water, dead. The three living men are fed and tended. That night they listen to the sound of the waves against the shore "and they felt that they could then be interpreters." (Crane)

These four characters in Stephen Crane’s story “The Open Boat” go through a different type of hardship without the concern of money. Material things and constant desire for wealth is the last thing that comes across their mind. For them survival is the richest thing that they can obtain. The class rankings of these men show where they are most valued through the story. The characters from the top would start with the captain, with the most power. Followed after by the correspondent, the educated man out of the four men. Next is the cook, and lastly, the oiler. Throughout the story, the oiler Billie must do most of the rowing because he is physically the strongest individual in the boat. He is used for manual labor, and the captain is injured so he can’t bring much to the table other than his nautical expertise.

In the end, weakened from doing so much rowing, Billie dies. Ultimately he is the only one who dies in the end. In a Marxist theory it would show that because Billie is of the lowest class and had no power among the four men, he was forced

...