Melodrama and the Manifesto of the Communist Party

Throughout the majority of The Manifesto of the Communist Party, the bourgeoisie class is posed as the ultimate villain. The proletariat expresses their distaste for capitalism and the effects that it has on society as a whole, including the idea of capital, urbanization, and the reduction of family relations to “money relations”. In the first chapter of the Manifesto, Bourgeois and Proletarians, the following statement stood out in terms of melodrama since it explains two classes in direct opposition to one another:

“Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.”

The idea of society being split into two camps can be compared to the idea of "black hat vs. white hat" in melodrama. There is a clear good vs. evil that the Manifesto presents: the proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie. Melodrama was used in part as a source of comfort for the urban working class during the rise of capitalism, and in this battle against what viewers would see as the villainous bourgeoisie, they would eventually prevail.