The American Civil War
The American Civil War was a 'Rich man's war, poor man's fight'. Many of the upper class payed those of the proletariats to go to take their draft card and go to battle for them. Also many of the Southerners believed they were fighting for there state and it's rights, but in actuality they were fighting for the rich plantation owners to keep their slaves. Only 3/4 of 1% of white Southerners owned 50 or more slaves. The wealthiest of the wealthy lived in the South during that time because they produced around 60% of the world's cotton before the civil war. They did not have access to the North's textile mills for the cotton during the war which severely hurt the South's economy. The South took years to reconstruct their economy after the war. Those the bourgeoise of the South that had everything before the war, almost in a blink of an eye had nothing, as their farms and homes were destroyed in battles and their was no way to sell their cotton and other cash crops.
Architecture as a Symbol of Personal Power
Throughout history different countries and states have used large buildings to display their dominance, whether it be in the form of tombs like the eygptians, churches for the state-supported religion of the time, or even over-glorified homes for the royalty. But lately a trend in the American culture is to buy houses that are exorbitant. They are practically palaces. It is past the point of just wanting a little more space, it is because of the need to outwardly show that they have reached an achievement of the upperclass. In our capitalist society people are also always competing for customers, for grades, for a larger amount of money and now for larger houses. The National Association of Home Builders say the average size for American single family home in the 1950's was 983 square feet, now it's almost 2,500 square feet. If you want to read more about the enlargement of people's homes in the United States click here. To American's bigger is always better but is that mindset healthy in the least. No. These larger homes result in families interacting less, which leds to fewer well adjusted socially aware children are entering the world, and the iPhone that the parents give their six year old probably isn't helping either but thats a different story.
Homelessness
There are 610,042 experiencing homelessness any given night in the United States according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. A large number of these homeless people stay in large cities or in the areas around them. The number of homeless people seems rather high, especially since those areas are usually filled with well off business people and rich executives. These bourgeoise do not take the time to help those in need that they may see everyday on the sidewalk in the shadow of the office building they work in. This shows how capitalism creates people that only care for themselves and become greedy, with there time and money. Marxists would suggest creating a system where everyone shares the money/labor/property, so the creating ideal that nobody would be homeless. The separation of classes in the bourgeoisie business people and the proletariat homeless and the social expectation of the business people to mind their own business (ahaha puns) and get to work quickly prevents them from helping. But to solve this problem people are going to have to step out of their comfort zones eventually.
These are not examples of Marxist Literary Theory that you will find in your books in English class, but Marxist perspective is still applicable to see how and why people do the things they do when interacting. Try and find other examples historical events, people, and trends that you can apply Marxist Literary Theory to, it helps develop a broader world perspective, of how interactions between social classes creates history.
