Marxist theory and Oedipus the King"The history of every society existing up to now is the history of class struggles" (Marx and Engels 2). This excerpt, taken from the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, explains the two main classes present in much of Europe during the era of the Industrial Revolution. These classes were the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The former were known as the "exploiters" and the latter as the "exploited". The wealth, power and prestige of the bourgeoisie, acquired mainly from the control of institutions, industries and means of production, allowed them to impose themselves on the market. proletariat their economic, political and religious ideologies. These are the same ideologies “used to maintain certain social relationships” (Eagleton 466). These very ideologies are what "makes the masses loyal to the very institutions that are the source of their exploitation" (Tischler 16). Once the proletariat stops believing or adhering to those ideologies, revolt is inevitable, and the moment it occurs, so does the destruction or alteration of a single controlling and tyrannical power. It can therefore be said that "the reign of the bourgeoisie is doomed when economic conditions are ripe and when a working class united by solidarity, aware of its common interests and animated by an adequate system of ideas, faces its disunited antagonists" (Rideneir) . If one analyzes the text of Sophocles' play Oedipus the King using this historical, context-oriented form of Marxist criticism, the ongoing class struggles within this Theban society are revealed. After reading the work, you notice an apparent class structure found throughout. In Oedipus Tyrannus, two main... at the center of the card... one's destiny. In class struggles, the lower class will somehow rise up to defeat their rulers. It's inevitable. Sources Cited Fish, Thomas E. Critical Summary of "Literature and History." Marxism and literary criticism. U of California P, 1976. 1-19. Rpt. in Contexts of criticism. Ed. Donald Keesey. 3rd ed. October 25, 2000 http://www.cumber.edu/litcritweb/theory/eagleton.htm.Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Trans. Paul M. Sweeny. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998. Rideneir. "The sociology of knowledge". Marxist theory of class struggles.1 November 2000 http://raven.jmu.edu/~rideneir/dss/index.html.Sophocles. Oedipus Tyrant. Norton Criticism ed. Trans. Luci Berkowitz and Theodore F. Brunner. New York: Norton, 1970. Tischler, Henry L. Introduction to Sociology. 6th ed. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 1999.