“Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory” and Ally Condie’s Matched

 

            British intellectual theorist Raymond Williams argues in his essay “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory” that contemporary critical theory is “concerned with understanding an object in such a way that is can be profitably or correctly consumed” (Williams 1434).  Ally Condie is an author of young adult novels which puts Williams’s theory to practice in her novel Matched.  This first novel in the trilogy focuses on the life of teenager Cassia Maria Reyes.  Cassia lives in dystopian America where “Society” determines every aspect of the life of their constituents.  Everything from literature to be read, art to be viewed, dietary concerns, even marriages are resolved by the ruling body  in order to preserve a peaceful, though regimented life.  Williams postulates in his commentary that “in any society, in any particular period, there is a central system of practices, meanings and values, which we can properly call dominant and effective” (Williams 1429).  Condie’s novel puts Marxist theories of Communism and Williams’s interpretations of them to the test, documenting in her fictitious novel what can happen when a collective determines taste and sensibility for its people.  Society’s dominant culture turns art into objects, artifacts, and commodities; promoting an extinction of individual determination of taste, annihilation of the personal expression of sentiment, and a black market that thrives on the intention of regaining the meaning that has been lost.

            Williams contends that most discussion of literary theory tends to be directed towards “the discovery of a method, perhaps even a methodology, through which particular works of art can be understood and described” (Williams 1434).  In Cassia’s world, theories of taste are irrelevant as Society regulates which literature, movies, music, and paintings its people will be exposed to while establishing which interpretations of each piece will be taught in the schools.  Each genre of art is broken down into groups of only one hundred, and any other pieces of art which is discovered in the ruins of the prior civilization becomes taboo.  A snowy day causes Cassia to recall a poem in her Literacy and Learning class entitle “Stopping by the Wood on a Snowy Evening”.  The recollection of this poem causes her to reflect on Society’s reasoning for gleaning on the best one hundred pieces of culture.  Condie writes: “They created commissions to choose the hundred best of everything: Hundred Songs, Hundred Paintings, Hundred Stories, Hundred Poems.  The rest were eliminated.  Gone forever.  For the best, the Society said, and everyone believed it because it made sense.  How can we appreciate anything fully when overwhelmed with too much?’ (Condie 24).   In Matched’s society, the ruling bodies have taken Williams’s allusion to I.A. Richards concerning “What effect does this work have on me?” (1435) to the next level where Society determines what effect art is going to have on its people.

            Condie’s fiction realm determines that when an object is kept from past incarnations of culture, the object is resolved to be an “artifact”.  The author defines an artifact as “a few treasures from the past which float around among us.  Though citizens of Society are allowed, one artifact each, they are hard to come by” (Condie 8).  Cassia’s artifact is a gold, engraved compact from the 1940’s that was owned by her grandmother, who was on the committee for choosing the One Hundred Poems.  Hidden within the compact,unbeknownst to Cassia until later in the novel, is a shred of paper which contains the poem of Dylan Thomas’s entitled “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”.  Thomas’s poem was not chosen as one of “The Hundred” as it encourages rebellion.  This discovery is important for Cassie who realized that she is limited by living in a place where she cannot write and people “merely know how to use the words of another” (Condie 57).  Society treats works of art as objects and has honed the understanding of these objects in such a way “that is can profitably or correctly be consumed” (Williams 1434).  Society has left its members voiceless, having taken away their own individual interpretations of art and without the means of expressing their feelings and concerns unless they utilize the approved sentiments of another.

            Condie’s world also exhibits art as a black market commodity.  Because many pieces of art were previously determined to express emotions outside of Society’s practices and expectations, a rebellion is beginning to thrive.  This rebellion is finding its voice within the black market trade of art, literature, and artifacts.  In the sub-heading “The Complexity of Hegemony”, Williams explores the concept of selective traditions in which “the terms of an effective dominant culture is always passed off as ‘the tradition’, the significant past” (Williams 1429).  In Matched, Society has determined that it will only preserve art which fosters feeling of contentment and suppress art which stirs rebellion.  The intended result is a culture of docility but what rises is an underworld which prospers on the exposure of banned art and artifacts which spark genuine feeling.  Sentiments such as Dylan Thomas’s “Rage, rage, against the dying of the light” are such that causes mankind to questions why they have stopped fighting for their own desires, raising disillusionment against the oppressive culture which suppresses reality.

            Allie Condie’s young adult novel Matched seems to be a novel unlikely to be applied with Communist theory, however the book depicts what can happen when the laudable properties of such as theory go array due to control by a dominant culture.  When a dominant entity determines what it people will read, view, and consume, the original concept of social equality is overthrown for the leadership of a tyrannical force, driven to oppress creativity, turning art into objects only to be genuinely enjoyed underground away from “big brother”.  In this novel, William’s interpretive theories become warnings of what can happen if a body determines to squelch the individual interpretations of art, and promulgate a practice of restrictive Hegemony.

 

Works Cited

Conde, Ally. Matched. New York: Dutton Books, a member of Penguin Group, 2010. Print.

Williams, Raymond. "Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory." Leitch, Vincent B. gen. ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Second Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 1423-1437. Print.