The Weigh of Wealth: A Marxist Critique of Social Injustice
Keywords:
Marxist criticism, class hierarchy, ideology, narrative authority, social injusticeAbstract
This study examines how class hierarchy produces social injustice in Atonement (2007) through a Marxist critical framework. While previous scholarship has primarily emphasized narrative unreliability and guilt, limited research has systematically analyzed how class prejudice, institutional authority, and narrative perspective interact to structure injustice within the film. The objective of this study is to explain how Robbie Turner’s working class identity shapes his fate, how social institutions legitimize injustice, and how narrative authority constructs a false truth that reinforces class hierarchy. This research employs a qualitative design using textual and film analysis. Data were collected through repeated viewing, dialogue transcription, and scene documentation from the official cinematic version, and analyzed using Marxist concepts such as ideology, false consciousness, and institutional power alongside film form analysis. The findings reveal that class based suspicion determines credibility, institutional procedures reproduce dominant ideology, and narrative perspective transforms subjective perception into socially accepted truth. The study concludes that injustice in the film operates structurally rather than individually, contributing to Marxist film criticism by foregrounding class power as the central force shaping narrative outcomes.
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