Superstructure

The fundamental point of Marxist thinking is the notion of base and superstructure. The sum total of production constitutes the economic structure of society. It is the real foundation on which rises a legal and political superstructure. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being but it is the social being that determines their consciousness. The superstructure includes apart from political, religious consciousness, aesthetic consciousness. For Marxism art is a part of the superstructure. According to Marx “to understand literature means understanding the total social process of which it is a part”.

Marx uses the metaphor of a building, which has a base or structure as its foundation, and the superstructure is something emerging from and standing upon the foundation. In the similar way the base or the structure is the foundation or a condition of existence in many ways. The religious, political and cultural and literary consciousness or concepts belong to the superstructure, which emerges, from the base or the structure.

According to Marx Superstructure totally man-made unlike the base in which a strong component of nature exists. Whereas the base manifests the planned collective labor of men and women under a social frame work, superstructure is evolved to interpret, explain and justify the distribution of social surplus as well as ideals prevalent at the base. As people fight at the base for survival, they become conscious of its nature and its social reality in their minds and it constitutes the area of superstructure.

Art or literature as a part of superstructure comes out of the base of economic production and social reality. Marx cites the example of Shakespeare. Shakespeare flourished in the atmosphere of buoyancy, exhilaration and the freedom of economic cares felt by the governing class, which is engendered by profit inflation. On the contrary “Shakespeare’s tragic outlook on the world was consequential upon his being the dramatic expression of the feudal aristocracy which in Elizabethan day had lost their former dominant position”


The ancient classical literature of Greece, Marx thinks that flourished almost under the similar condition of prosperity and economic stability.

It would be a mistake to imply that Marxist criticism moves mechanically from text to ideology to social relations to productive forces. It is concerned with the unity of these levels of society. Literature may be part of the superstructure but it is not merely the passive reflection of the base, it can be an element in the social change. Marx says:
“In case of the arts it is well known that certain periods of their flowering are out of all proportions to the general development of society”. He further asserts that the fact that works of art are connected historically with social structures does not mean that they lose their significance when these social structures disappear. On this point Marx cites the art and epic poetry of the ancient Greeks “which still give us aesthetic pleasure and are in certain respects regarded as a standard and unattainable ideal”