Applying Marxism theory to the novel

A Clash of Voices

An Marxist Criticism of Jonathan Foer 's Everything is Illuminated

Introduction

It was a rigid journey ' that started with two voices and that ended with one . One is the voice of meaningless modernity . Disjointed and syncopated , this voice hopes to fit in with the norm , tirelessly finding meaning through misconstrued words . The other is the voice of an ailing past as it struggles to keep up with the present . It is the words of fable and myth , lost in the humdrum of everyday life . Coming in contact

through an unexpected dialogue , these two voices collide but , further on , reveal their similarities in to address the issues of their looming futures

Jonathan Safran Foer 's critically-successful debut novel Everything is Illuminated relishes in these two voices , speaking to its readers in dual tones as a metaphor of the different perspectives that arise from a problem of identity that epitomizes this generation : a generation fraught by issues brought about by concerns of industry , capitalism , and materialism . Part memoir , part travelogue , this novel primarily chronicles the travels of Jonathan Foer , a young Jewish-American writer of the same name as the author , who attempts to research his grandfather 's life in Ukraine and discover the woman who had saved him from apparent execution in the hands of Nazi soldiers . To make his trip remotely easier , he employs the help of Heritage Tours , a tour company that specializes in aiding Jewish-Americans retrace their roots in the Old Country . His guide...