The bourgeois hawks in market arena: a Marxist reading of <i>A Market of Betrayal</i>

Abstract

Society, at its different stages of development, is said to evolve different modes of economic production- ranging from primitive mode, slavery mode, feudal mode, capitalist mode and sociological mode. Deploying Marxist literary theory, the paper focused on the effects and the implications of socio-economic evolution in A Market of Betrayals by examining the prevailing mode of production in the play, the type of social relations that exist among the people and govern their relation; those who determine these rules and the means of enforcing them as well as the implication for the opposing force and the society at large. Through textual analysis, it is established that the inherent contradictions in the world of A Market of Betrayals stem from the hidden selfish interest and hypocrisy of the dominant economic force which is in conflict with the interest of the working class. The hidden interests are presented as having universal values meant for the well-being of the people. The paper concluded that any socio-economic relations geared towards exploiting the people will eventually lead to a conflict because of its inherent contradictions. This conflict does not always resolve itself into a new position, essentially different from the original position.

Keywords: Bourgeois, Proletariat, Superstructure, Hawks, Dialectical materialism