Family as a Product of the Environment

What is family? Family can be described in several ways, a group of persons of common ancestry, or by a person’s perceived view of what a family actually is. Everyone has their own beliefs on what actually makes and defines a family. We will compare the views on family based on Karl Marx’s “Communist manifesto” and Jose Saramago’s “The Cave” to see the differences and similarities that take place, and then we will come to a general conclusion that family is a product of our environment

Marx felt that history of man is the history of class struggles; these class struggles generally exist between the oppressed and the oppressors. As for the modern class struggle, the authors of the Manifesto blame industrialization, the discovery of the New World and other foreign markets, and the amount of capital available to the businessmen and the bourgeoisie as reasons for the abuse of the working class. The working class is described as being nearly impossible to make better; they have only the bare minimum to survive and the growth of capitalism is making the proletarian class even bigger. This is why they are fit to rise up, together, in open revolution to change the current social structure, to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie.

Because of the drive to make money, Marx felt the ties between men had been reduced to “naked self-interest” and “cash payment”. (Marx 11) To Marx families were seen as nothing more than a business relationship. For this reason, Marx advocated for the abolishment of families and supported free love to end the exploitation of wives. Instead of having many family units, the plan was to break these down to give way for the eventual birth of one large family of proletarians.

In “The Cave” the view of family is represented by Cipriano Algor, his daughter Marta, her husband Marcal and even the family dog Found. Family is very important to the Algor‘s as it can be found in the constant crying and discussions by the family. There are many arguments that end up with one or more of the people in the discussion crying. For instance when Marta finally tells he father that they are having a child, Cipriano is upset that they didn’t tell him sooner, Marta begins to cry and it all ends up ok. Crying is a key way to show someone that you care for them. By showing you’re most extreme emotions towards a person, it can show that you really care, and that you meant no harm in the actions that have taken place. Cipriano tends to be stubborn when the question arises to move to the Center. It can be concluded that Cipriano is worried, now that his wife has passed away, his daughter, who is going to move away due to a promotion by Marcal, will be leaving Cipriano and then he will have nothing left. Cipriano shows some hostility towards Marcal in certain points in the book;

“The person I can’t take seriously is the security guard that the nice, friendly lad I used to know has turned into. Your Marcal as we know him today is all security guard, he is a security guard from his head to his toes, and I suspect that he is even a security guard in his heart.” (Saramago 36)

This can be explained by Freud’s theory on psycho-sexual development:

“Both boys and girls experience the Phallic Stage. Boys experience it when they 'fall in love' with their mother (and so fear their dad) and girls experience it when they realize they do not have a penis and so reproach their mother for bringing them into the world 'mis-shapen' (also known as 'penis envy'). They also no longer fear their father (thus accepting the idea of union with a male).” (Freud)

This can be used to describe Cipriano; he is almost in love with his daughter, so he fears Marcal, for the reason that he is going to take her away from him. Cipriano also has strong family values; he believes that the man of the house should be able to support his family. When he is talking with Isuara he makes it very clear that he needs to be the supporter of the family, and since he has no job, he feels that he doesn’t deserve a wife. “Please, lets not play with a mans words, a man isn’t going to ask a woman to marry him if he has no way of earning a living” (Saramago 262) In the society that Cipriano has lived in grown up in it is customary for the man of the house hold to put the food on the table, and the woman’s job to prepare the food and make sure the man is well fed. Though this is not entirely the case in The Cave, it is still the basic outline for the way things work.

Karl Marx, and Cipriano come from similar backgrounds, both were poor throughout life, both feel that the world is being taking over by big business, yet there are still similarities between them on the issue of family. Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto believes