Melodrama in the Communist Manifesto

            When I first looked over the Manifesto it did not strike me so much as melodramatic, but when I took a second look I realized there was a lot to be said about the good and evil of the time period. One of the first instances where I really felt the Manifesto shouted ‘Melodrama!’ was on page 18 where they wrote:

“But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons—the modern working class—the proletarians.

In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e, capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed—a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.”

Here I think we see a stark contrast between good and evil; the proletariat, as a group of people who must basically sell their souls to capitalism, are seen as the victim here while the bourgeoisie are disguised as the capital. I think it’s interesting here to see how Marx develops his idea that the bourgeoisie can only handle so much power before chaos arises and it must start over. He starts small in this instance with this idea by saying that because of the way the society has been set up by the bourgeoisie, they have given the proletariat everything they need in order to rise up and take down the bourgeoisie all together. So, all along the proletariat has had the power and the means all along to rise up they just have not done it- this in itself is melodramatic. If the victim/hero never changes, it makes sense then that the proletariat wouldn’t rise up—it’s not in their nature, which isn’t changing.

            Backtracking now I want to look at page 17 where the authors of the Manifesto write: “Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.” I think this relates very much so to the point I made previously about the chaos that comes along with a powerful bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie have created a society that is so reliant on the means of production and on a world dominated by cities that now those commodities are gaining too much power and cannot be sustained by the crucial rural sector that has been cast aside. Here the melodrama lies in the caricature of the bourgeois society as a powerful sorcerer—a supernaturally endowed power. The supernatural component of this metaphor is so important in how this article comes across as melodramatic; it paves the way for the remainder of the article and makes it a point to the reader that there is something unnatural and maybe dangerous about the modern market and the way in which it is being controlled.

The last instance I want to talk about is on page 21 where the authors are just summing up their reasoning behind the villainy of the bourgeoisie. They say: “The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” This to me is the essential truth that always comes out in a melodrama; this is the mic drop. The bourgeoisie have dug their own grave, they have given the proletariat everything they might need to rise up—even though they never have. That’s what makes this situation melodramatic though, the proletariat (as a never-changing character) will not on its own rise up because it does not see the position that it is in. The proletariat think they are stuck in their place in society without a way out…until a greater power comes along and endows them with the strength to rise up, without them even knowing it. The development of modern industry; the supernatural bourgeoisie butt kicker. 

The Poor of New York and Melodrama

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mn39yAQtq-ngz_KX721OTPiVNnEq3gqWrC8odzKadPY/edit?usp=sharing

Communist Manifesto Comments

The melodrama of the communist manifesto is rooted in its stark hero and villain who occupy totally disparate roles in society. Marx argues that the ebb and flow of society is rooted in social revolution. Our current capitalist model is the product of the overthrow of the feudal system by the bourgeoisie who greatly profited from the rise of the industrial revolution. This also took power away from the church and other existed power structures. I'm sure that before the rise of capitalism, the oppressed hero would have thought that capitalism is the good answer against the evil/overbearing church. Now that the system has been in place for a while, a new hero has emerged to fight the aristocrats/ bourgeoisie. The working class seems to kept in a perpetual state of subjugation and is incapable of freeing himself from "the boss". Marx believes that the proletariat will inevitably rise up to start a new economic order. After seeing the largest protest in American history sweep the nation, it is clear that there is power in the mass that can't be silenced by "alternative facts".

The Poor of New York

37-41

66-67

The Communist Manifesto as a Work of Melodrama

The second chapter of The Communist Manifesto has always stood out to me from the others. To me, it’s the only point in the text where a more “personal” voice occasionally breaks through the dry, logical argument, and seeing as melodrama is, frankly, designed to be a relatively basic form of entertainment, it seemed to be a good place to look for melodramatic language. Pretty early in, something jumped out to me, “. . .abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence. Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property!” This immediately evokes the central principles and emotions surrounding individualism, a concept central to melodrama. In fact, Marx is using the words of anti-communist argument, writing this from the assumed stance of a capitalist defending his modern individualism from being taken away. Marx then completely undermines that argument by demonstrating that the idea of capitalist (and therefore modernist) individualism doesn’t exist in a tangible way for the majority of people. While this is ultimately a straw man argument, Marx is attempting to stir up the emotions of the average reader using clearly melodramatic language.

A word we keep touching on in class discussion is “catharsis,” and regardless of its presence or its painfully noticeable absence, the idea of catharsis is another hallmark of melodrama. The second chapter does, in fact, refer to this intense release of pent-up emotion, but it does so strangely. The chapter ends, “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” This comes after paragraph upon paragraph listing all the ways in which the capitalist working class are consistently denied personal freedoms by the bourgeois. The second half of this sentence, “free development of each. . .free development of all,” is clearly meant to be a sort of rallying cry, along the lines of “No taxation without representation.” But rather than deliver or deny catharsis to the audience, the inclusion of the phrase, “we shall have” instead presents catharsis as a possibility that could be obtained, the goal presumably being to create a call to action. And these are just two examples out of many! In writing The Communist Manifesto, Marx eloquently blended melodramatic speech and logical argument, stirring hearts and minds at once.

The Communist Manifesto

The communist manifesto is a documentation with the goal of expressing the purpose behind communism and predicting its inevitable future. Its uses evocative extreme language as well as creating a clear line between who is good and who is evil, both of which reflect a level of melodrama. It sees communists as playing the role of the "hero" and anyone who opposes communism as the defininitive "villain.

In the second part of the manifesto, it says that the "Communists therefore, are on the one had, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country, the section which pushes forward all others". This is a melodramatic statement because it not only depicts the communists as a hero, pushing forward other people towards what is claimed by the manifesto and being the "right" and "good" outcome. It is also melodramatic because it expresses that the hero are at a disadvantage, they are working class and have to overcome that in order to achieve their heroic capabilities.

In section four of the manifesto, it describes the Communists in relation to all the other opposition that they face. It expresses the belief in revolution that is at the core of communism. Revolution relates to the idea of revelation that is common in melodrama. Revolution involves a sense of a revelation of a new idea of what is good in the form of determining a new group that should have the power. The Manifesto states that "the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things". Communists wanted to take power from the upper classes, who play the melodramatic role of the aristocratic villain, like the Malfoys in Harry Potter. They believe in a revelation that brings power back to the working classes, abolishing class antagonism and private property.

In both tone and content, the Communist Manifesto contains a lot of the qualities of melodrama. Though it is completely real and not meant to be entertaining or theatrical, it still evokes the catharsis that a melodramatic movie or play does.

The Communist Manifesto and Melodrama

The Communist Manifesto contains many elements of melodrama, from the word choice of the text to the many themes within it. Even the opening sentence is melodramatic: “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.” This line conveys the ideology of communism as a spectre, or ghost. This immediately makes it clear to the reader that communism is typically portrayed as a villain, much like a ghost. Here, the text acknowledges the common, melodramatic portrayal of communism. This portrayal’s presence within the geographical and temporal contest of the text’s composition formed such an intensely negative view of communism that Marx felt motivated to combat this view.

Within the body of the text, Marx employs melodramatic techniques to persuade his audience. Like many politicians throughout time, Marx utilized the persuasive capabilities of creating an “us versus them” mentality. This is to say that Marx wrote this text with a clear hero (the communists) and villain (opposition to communism) in mind. He describes the proletariat as a victim of modernity, evidenced in the section of the text that states “Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character … He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.” Here, Marx portrays the proletariat as a virtuous victim of misfortune who will be relieved of their suffering. He proposes that this relief will come about through revolution. Though his proposed means of attaining relief is through conscious action, as opposed to the more classic melodramatic idea of relief from suffering due to mere fate, Marx’s overall portrayal of society utilizes classic melodramatic conventions.

Manifesto and Melodrama

Much of the Manifesto is melodramatic, especially in terms of the word choices used. The writers use scathing adjectives when referring to the modern bourgeoisie and general negative terminology when referring to the feudal system.  The following excerpt from the Manifesto demonstrates this perfectly: “The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors,” and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment.” It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” The writers all but stated that the bourgeoisie were pure evil and a detrimental force to society, much worse than even the feudal system.   

Manifesto of the Communist Party

Testing blogger.

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.

Melodrama in the Communist Manifesto

I don't know if this is posting in the right place but I shall try again!

“The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.”

This section of the Communist Manifesto I found to have elements of melodrama. It presents the argument in a very black and white manner, appeals strongly to the emotions of its audience, and dramatizes the situation. Words like “scum,” “rotting,” “lowest layers,” and “mass” are strongly evocative and bring emotion into the argument.

Melodrama in the Manifesto of the Communist Party

Thanks to the publication of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, the political, cultural, and economic ideologies of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and those who identified as communist, were centralized and published for individuals of the western world. According to the authors (Marx and Engels) the manifesto served to unite the varying communist ideologies, inform the Western World of the flaws in Capitalism, and propose an alternative. The manifesto recognizes that in capitalism, there exists a class struggle between the rich upper class, or the Bourgeois, and working middle and lower classes, or the Proletarians. It is through this struggle that Marx and Engels forward the communist ideology on the working class in the Western World.

By presenting the manifesto as a melodrama where the Bourgeois are representative of the ultimate evil and the Proletarians as the ultimate good, Marx and Engels further their ideology for communism. In the manifesto, Bourgeois are portrayed as controlling, manipulative, and oppressive towards the Proletarian class. We see the Bourgeois act this way for their own capital gain and overall retain the ability to control society as they see fit. On the other hand, the Proletarians are portrayed as victims of the Bourgeois. Because of the exploitation  of the Proletarians by capitalism, and furthermore the Bourgeois, the Proletarian class is shown to have lost its humanity. Instead the Proletarian class becomes another interchangeable property that the Bourgeois can dispose of, without remorse.

Marx and Engels’ clever use of melodrama in the Manifesto of the Communist Party serves as a rallying cry for the working class. Since the Bourgeois class is composed of a select few elite individuals of society, the common populous of western societies may find it hard to identify with the ideals and struggles of the Bourgeois. However, most individuals can identify with the Proletarian struggle of obtaining a sustainable life and retaining their humanity from Bourgeois manipulation. According to Marx and Engels, the Proletarian class can only obtain this by first rising to power, disposing of the systems created by capitalism, and establish a new system under communism. 

Comments and Thoughts on the Manifesto of the Communist Party

Comments and Thoughts on the Manifesto of the Communist Party

      The Manifesto of the Communist Party is a melodrama containing its main protagonist, the proletariats, and antagonist, the Bourgeoisie. Briefly introducing the concept of the melodrama, the protagonist usually defeats the villain with a purpose of redeeming himself. Although, through the lens of Singer, the protagonist may only borrow the force of a natural entity, the Manifesto of the Communist Party clearly shows the victory of a helpless hero (proletariats) against a powerful, usually discerning villain (bourgeois), through the efforts of the hero(s) and their association.

            The Manifesto of the Communist Party, introduces the main characters in the beginning of the text. There is a clear villain who enslaves the helpless. The helpless in this case are the proletariats. These helpless classes are deprived of their basic rights, almost misunderstood and definitely underrepresented, as they are transformed into labor and exploited through the invention of capital. However, the text states “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers” which hints that the villain will surely prevail. The idea of the hero overthrowing the evil is more evident below.

 This structure where evil inevitably perishes due to a lost proletariat is the most basic form of melodrama introduced by Singer.

The absolute hero, who is righteous is established within the lines below.

One last characteristic of a melodrama consists another force trumping the evil. This characteristic is shown through the context of….

The communists act as a union for the individually helpless proletariats and bring forth revolutionary powers through the force of coalition against the evil actors of capital owners.

            The Manifesto of the Communist Party resembles the common melodrama as it has a clear villain and a hero that is without doubt going to be victorious under the circumstances of the communist manifesto during the period of the introduction of and resentment towards capitalism.

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