Lone Wolf and Cub as Interpreted by Marxism

Marxist Thought on Lone Wolf and Cub.

Analyzing social and political conditions of a society increases dimension and depth of literary works by providing insight into the behaviors of the story’s characters.   Lone Wolf and Cub is a story guided by social and political tensions and set in Edo period Japan.  Japan had a feudal system based on several distinct classes with central power and final authority residing with the ruling class known as the Shogunate.  Ogami Itto roams the country as an assassin removed from the class system.  Political and class tensions permeate throughout the story, and many characters are petty, selfish, viscous, and continually plot for increased political power.   Karl Marx and Louis Althusser would identify the causation of animalistic behavior as a combination of social and political conditions alienating men from their work and oppressive tactics, used by the ruling class, to maintain and reproduce power.

The alienation of men from their work is thematic throughout the story.  References to hans, or feudal domains, include the domain’s production value: “ … Tanmura han and its thirty five thousand koku” (Koike 73), “Toritanba-No-Kami [han] … thirty thousand koku” (24), and “Taka han. Sixty thousand koku” (52).  Koku is a commodity defined as “A bale of rice” and used to measure a han’s agricultural wealth or productivity (296).  The German Ideology describes the alienation of men from their work.  Man is unable to enjoy the fruits of his labor and loses his identity as the products are owned by the ruling class (Marx 654-655).  The inclusion of production value to a han’s name places production value over the value of the population producing it.  It effectively removes the labor’s contribution to the commodities it produces. As the Shogunate ruled “ … with an iron fist” (288), it is a small step to infer the designation of production value is a reminder of the Shogun’s rule, presence, and expectations.

The political structure of the Shogunate parallels Louis Althusser’s description of oppressive tactics used to maintain and reproduce power by the ruling class.   If a State is governed by the ruling class, is organized under a central command, uses force and repression, and can contribute to itself, then it has met the criteria set forth by Althusser for maintaining power.   “For centuries, the Tokugawa Shogunate controlled the Daimyo lords of Japan’s unruly hans with an iron fist” (288).  Daimyo is defined as a lord over a feudal domain (295).  A feudal lord could lose his lands, his family, and his life with the slightest sign of defiance to the Shogunate (288).  The Shogunate was the ruling class, the central ruling authority, used violence to enforce ideology, and contributed to itself through unilateral taxation of feudal lands.   The use of power generated by the Shogunate parallels Althusser’s account of how the ruling class wields power to dominate workers.

Devaluing people by separating them from their work and using oppressive tactics conditions workers to exhibit primal behaviors.   Through the sense of forced labor, the worker “ … no longer feels himself to be freely active in any but his animal functions … What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal” (Marx, German 655).  This description mirrors and describes the primal behaviors exhibited by many of the characters in Lone Wolf and Cub.  Although the behaviors in the story may be exaggerated, the underlying tensions and behaviors are appropriate, believable, and in alignment with Marx’s assessment.

Marxist thought affirms and identifies the causation of baser behaviors in Lone Wolf and Cub.   Marx’s and Althusser’s essays occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and were directed toward western culture.  The ease in application to seventeenth-century Japan speaks to the universal behaviors identified and captured by the authors.  It is the universals of behavior caused by the social conditions of Edo period Japan that develop and add to the story of Lone Wolf and Cub.

Works Cited

Athusser, Louis, T.S.  “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.”  The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010. 1335-1361. Print.

Koike, Kazuo and Goseki Kojima et al. Lone Wolf and Cub vol. 1 – The Assassin’s Road. Milwaukie: Dark Horse Comics, Inc. 2000. Printt

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital, Volume 1. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010.  662-663. Print.

---.  The Communist Manifesto. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010.  647-655. Print.

---.  A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010.  662-663. Print.

---. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of.  The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010.  647-655. Print.

---.  The German Ideology.  The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010.  657-661. Print.

---.  Grundrisse. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010.  661-662. Print.