Karl Marx born on 5th May 1818 was a German-born philosopher, economist, political theorist, historian, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. 

Marxism was introduced by Karl Marx. Most Marxist critics who were writing in what could chronologically be specified as the early period of Marxist literary criticism, subscribed to what has come to be called “vulgar Marxism”. In this thinking of the structure of socities, literary texts are one register of the superstructure, which is determined by the economic base of any given society. Therefore, literary texts are a reflection of the economic base rather than “the social institutions from which they originate” for all social institutions, or more precisely human–social relationships, are in the final analysis determined by the economic base.

According to Marxists, even literature itself is a social institution and has a specific ideological function, based on the background and ideology of the author. The English literary critic and cultural theorist Terry Eagleton defines Marxist criticism this way: “Marxist criticism is not merely a ‘sociology of literature’, concerned with how novels get published and whether they mention the working class. Its aim is to explain the literary work more fully; and this means a sensitive attention to its forms, styles and, meanings. But it also means grasping those forms styles and meanings as the product of a particular history.”In Marxist criticism, class struggle and relations of production are the central instruments in analysis.

It is through the theories of class struggle, politics, and economics that Marxist literary criticism emerged. The thought behind Marxist criticism is that works of literature are mere products of history that can be analyzed by looking at the social and material conditions in which they were constructed.[10] Marx’s Capital states that “the mode of production of material life determines altogether the social, political, and intellectual life process. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary their social being, that determines their consciousness.“ Put simply, the social situation of the author determines the types of characters that will develop, the political ideas displayed and the economical statements developed in the text.

Marxist approach relates literary text to the society, to the history and cultural and political systems in which it is created. It does not consider a literary text, devoid of its writer and the influences on the writer. A writer is a product of his own age which is itself a product of many ages.