Final Reflection

   

      Seen through a Marxist Lens of critical analysis the ideas and themes presented in Song of Solomon and Huck Finn are strikingly different. Using a thematic lens allows readers to truly contrast the author’s differing perspectives on class and race.  

     Huck Finn is primarily a novel about a character oppressed because of his class. Huck escapes the paradigm of poverty by abandoning society for the lawless idyl of a raft drifting down the Mississippi. On his raft there are no haves or have nots creating a (small ) society of perfect equality.
In Song  of Solomon the character of Milkman Dead chooses to escape his sheltered privileged wealthy upper class existence for a search for his own origins. However even then he cant escape the deeds of his past.
This is one of the main differences between the two books Solomon tells the tale of a privileged man in an oppressed community while The Adventures is about an oppressed class in a privileged community. While both manage to escape only Huck is able to truly be free from his past while Milkman is hunted down by Guitar.
The class based analysis of the Marxist lens is very effective at revealing these disparities and thus the differences in the authors and their backgrounds. It therefore ties together to an extent aspects of historical, feminist and racial lens.