Dancer In The Dark + Marx

Marx talks about how a person is alienated amongst others due to their position and responsibilities as a worker. Dancer in the Dark's characters are all part of the social class system; most part of the working class. What is the signifigance of this use of social class in Dancer in the Dark.

The main character, Selma, is a working class lady who only works to survive and pay for her sons operation. She begins to go blind and we see that she has a stronger desire to keep working. According to Marx a worker identifies basically between worker and physical subject. Selma's work is vital to her and her going blind is her physical subject eliminating her to work and the vice-versa of this of course is the fact that her loss of work has effected her vision of herself. She realized that with no longer being able to work that she had done all that she could essentially.

Bill, the police officer whose wealth was gained by inheritance, essentially falls apart when he realizes that he can no longer keep his material goods that he has identified himself with. He views his home and property as part of himself; he even in a way considers his wife to be an object because of his fear that when she realizes the money is gone she will leave him too so he needs money to keep her and all his belongings. The knowledge that all the objects he has connected himself to will disappear he feels as though he himself is going to disappear with them. The loss of his wife and house leads him to believe that he will have lost himself and what he has known. The loss of his social class, luxuries, and the inability to provide the needs of survival has caused him to lose himself and so he goes to extreme measures to train and maintain his position in the higher social class by stealing Selma's money.

The other characters are mainly representations of different positions in the working class and Selma is kind of their martyr or symbol of realization of how this capitalist society isn't working. This would be the discussion we have had in class about class consciousness and how their would eventually be a revolt against capitalism; the rise of the Proletariats. We could view Bill through Marx as a victim of capitalism as well because the loss of his money and wealth leading to destruction.