Working Class Struggles?

[Mariamosis]

I just finished Emile Zola's 'Germinal' and love books such as 'The Jungle' by Sinclair, 'The Grapes of Wrath' and 'In Dubious Battle' by Steinbeck.

These 4 books deal with struggles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Can anyone recommend more books that pertain to the struggles of the working class?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Well if you read and follow Marxist thought then just about anything ever written will contain class struggle as that is basically how Marx saw life, but anything by Dickens or Austen would fit the bill. However two really obvious ones come to mind as being wholly built around the ideas of class struggle and they would be Gaskell’s North and South and Hardy’s Jude the Obscure – and yes I suggest Hardy’s Jude for just about every thread and every question because it is just that good. :)

Must go I'm wrapped up with a damn essay and presentation nonsense, got a headache and I need a beer!

[Mariamosis]

Hardy’s Jude the Obscure – and yes I suggest Hardy’s Jude for just about every thread and every question because it is just that good. :)

Hah... yeah I have noticed you have quite an attachment to 'Jude the Obscure', which I agree, and is a favorite of mine as well. (not to mention 'The Mayor of Casterbridge')

I have read 'A Tale of Two Cities' and 'David Copperfield' and loved them, but have not picked up anything else by Dickens.

I will have to look more into Dickens and search Gaskell. However, Austen, is not exactly my favorite author... and unless someone gives me a piece of incredible information, I am immoveable on that one. :)

Thanks for the suggestions!

[curlyqlink]

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis is both class conscious and hilarious, which is a rare combination! It's a delightful send-up of bourgeois sensibility.

[PabloQ]

King Coal by Upton Sinclair is pretty good, but The Octopus by Frank Norris is stellar. It is the story of California wheat farmers vs. the big bad railroad. it has one scene that's a little cheesy and predictable, but I excuse Norreis because the rest of the book is that good.
House of Mirth by Edith Wharton is a spin on the theme, although not so much from the aspect of the working class vs. the bourgeousie, but how those not in high society struggle to obtain through whatever means. Sister Carrie by Theodore Drieser deals with similar themes in a much different way with different results.

[Emil Miller]

One book that comes to mind is The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. It is not actualy a novel but reportage on the state of working class deprivation during the depression of the 1930s. Orwell lays it on with a trowel and seems to enjoy rolling around in the grime in much the same way as in his Down and Out in Paris and London. Zola went to a mining district in northern France to gather notes on the condition of mine workers and produced one of the best novels ever written but, unlike Orwell, he wasn't in the business of assuaging any guilt at his bourgeois status.

[kasie]

Robert Tressell: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. It's set in Britain in the early years of the twentieth century and shows the struggles of a group of men working in the building industry.

[Pensive]

Can we count Doctor Zhivago?

[Zee.]

Hard Times - Dickens

[DisPater]

Jack London - Martin Eden

According to György Lukács in his' The Historical Novel even Walter Scott's Ivanhoe is about Class Struggles.

[amalia1985]

The Valley Of The Moon by Jack London might be a good example, dealing with the issue of strike, working people's rights, violence, the agony for a better future, and how all these affect the families and society in general.

[WICKES]

George Orwell is the best place to start

D H Lawrence: Sons and Lovers

J B Priestly 'An Inspector Calls'

[LitNetIsGreat]

Inspector Calls, good choice, second that one.

[Niamh]

Was going to say North and South...but thats already been mentioned! :D

[kelby_lake]

I just finished Emile Zola's 'Germinal' and love books such as 'The Jungle' by Sinclair, 'The Grapes of Wrath' and 'In Dubious Battle' by Steinbeck.

These 4 books deal with struggles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Can anyone recommend more books that pertain to the struggles of the working class?

A Kestrel for A Knave- but it's really dreadfully sad.
A film: This Property is Condemned
Basically any Tennessee Williams play- maybe A Streetcar Named Desire.

[Pecksie]

I don't know about 'class struggles', i.e. struggles BETWEEN classes, but some great authors who deal with the problems and issues of the poor are:

O. Henry (his short stories of New York in the so-called "Gilded Age" are excellent)
Victor Hugo (at his most tear-jerking in "Les Misérables")
John Steinbeck ("Of Mice and Men" is a brilliant portrayal of rural drifters at the time of the Depression)
Anne Brontë ("Agnes Grey" is about the predicament of a friendless governess)

"Sons and Lovers" by D. H. Lawrence and "Jude the Obscure" by Hardy have already been mentioned.

[mono]

As others have mentioned, almost any novel by Charles Dickens, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, or Gustave Flaubert. A few other specifics I would mention:
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy explores the elite vs. the middle-class of Russia in Bolshevik times.
Both Tender is the Night and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald also rummages through the more wealthy classes and the blue/white-collar classes. In addition, both show a lot of struggles between people of different countries, particularly those of America, England, and France.
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway has a lot of struggles between hierarchies in anarchistic work during WWI; it shows some difficulties between Americans and Spaniards fighting for the same means, and also of different social classes, but by different means - worst of all, they all think theirs the best plan - that sounds vague, I know, but I do not want to spoil the end.

[Mariamosis]

Thanks for all of the suggestions!
I am going to have a ton of reading for the next year or so, seeing as how I am going to add all of these to my current reading list!

Thanks again!

[Pecksie]

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy explores the elite vs. the middle-class of Russia in Bolshevik times.



Hmmm... no... actually, Tolstoy died years before the Bolshevik revolution... I think you mean Imperial Russia.

[kelby_lake]

Oh, you mean struggles between poor and middle-class:

Deffo Great Gatsby, with the trendy rich islands and The Valley of Ashes-impoverished America.

Lady Chatterley's Lover?

[mono]

Hmmm... no... actually, Tolstoy died years before the Bolshevik revolution... I think you mean Imperial Russia.
Oops, indeed - got a bit of my Russian history confused. Thanks!

[JohiSD]

I love books like that too. Anna Karenina has some of that...more from a philosophical perspective. Kinda a hot topic of the day...the business/political elite and us measly taxpayers :)

My new fave book "The Crowd Dreams of Love" deals with this...there is a controlling government and powerful corporations who push an agenda and illegally detain citizens and immigrants who don't "fit" into the mold. It's sort of Orwellian, like 1984.

"The Crowd Dreams of Love, a new novel by John Leone published by Blithedale Books, foresees ordinary citizens pulled into an underground revolution to fight a corrupt government and greedy corporations that crush civil rights, manipulat the media, imprison the innocent and reward the elite."

[Lynne Fees]

Les Miserables

[I LOVE TOLSTOY]

Tressell's masterpiece: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Quintessential piece of class struggle literature. Tressell combines Dickensian eponyms with almost non existent 'pick ups'; ( happy parts of the story :yawnb: )

[dafydd manton]

Try "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" by Alan Sillitoe - set in the grime of 1960's Nottingham. The Road to Wigan Pier by Orwell is grossly exaggerated, as another poster suggested, and is actually a classic piece of class prejudice.

[JBI]

In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje.

[chrismythoi]

The Road to Wigan Pier by Orwell is grossly exaggerated, as another poster suggested, and is actually a classic piece of class prejudice.

in what way is it prejudiced? i thought it was very fair and balanced