Ervin1

Tommy Ervin

Ms. Jacobs

Freshmen comp II

November 15, 2017

Economic Class Struggle

My God mother is a famous gospel singer and a poet. Almost every Thursday I would go

with her to this poetry class she taught. I always enjoyed that she would write poems that

everyone in the room could relate too. She was good at turning real life situations into great

poems. Another poet who did that was Langston Hughes. He strived on turning light onto

situations through poetry. One example of this is his poem Ballad of the Landlord. This Poem

can be analyzed by using the Marxist Critical approach. Both the Ballad of the Landlord and

the Marxist critical approach can relate to many real life issues and events. But one issue that

relates the most to me is A Fair Housing Act Challenge to Federal No-fault Evictions from

Public Housing. The Ballad of The Landlord is linked to A Fair Housing Act Challenge to

Federal No-fault Evictions from Public Housing by both dealing with lower class tenants being

treated treated wrong by upper class landlords.

Marxist criticism is the underlying cause of history, was the base, and culture, including

literature and the other arts, was the superstructure, an outcome or reflection of the base. Viewed

from the Marxist perspective, the literary works of a period were economically determined; they
 Ervin2

would reflect the state of the struggle between classes in any place and time. This Critical

approach applies to the Ballad of The Landlord in many ways. But the aspect that applies the

most is the state of struggle between classes. This poem directly deals with two different

economic classes clashing together. The tenant in this poem is considered the low class while the

landlord is the upper class. What? You gonna get eviction orders? You gonna cut off my heat?

You gonna take my furniture and throw it in the street? (Hughes 520) This is a true example of

the low class being treated totally wrong because of histheir lack of money. Police! Police!

Come get this man! Hes trying to ruin the government and overturn the land! (Hughes 520)

This is also an example of upper class people having too much power and dont know how to use

it. The landlord uses his power of having a little money to their advantage by getting the tenant

arrested over a heated argument. I personally seen this happen before. One of my older friends

got arrested for allegedly saying he was going to kill the landlord. But what really happen was

that they got into an argument and the landlord was scared of my friend so he called the police

and my friend was arrested. Nothing has really changed from the poem till now. I say this just to

prove that situations like the one in the poem happen all the time.

One issue that really relates to the Ballad of the Landlord and the Marxist approach was

A Fair Housing Act Challenge to Federal No-fault Evictions from Public Housing. What

happened in this issue was that an older lady was evicted from her apartment because her

mentally disabled adult daughter sold drugs from their apartment. But she was never caught with

drugs on the premises. Sshe was caught three blocks down the street. This forces the Oakland

Housing Authority to take steps to evict Ms. Rucker. Not realizing evicting her is like evicting

eight people. Ms. Ruckers family didnt have much money, her children, grandchildren and

great grandchildren look to her for shelter as the family matriarch. Ms. Rucker problem is very
 Ervin3

similar to the one in Ballad of The Landlord. They are similar because in both situations the

tenants are treated totally wrong. In the Ballad of The Landlord the tenant gets thrown in jail

because the upper class landlord feels threatened. In the caseissue Ms. Rucker gotets evicted

because she wasis a lower class older lady and because her mentally ill daughter gets caught with

drugs three blocks off the premises. In the lease, it says no one can have any kind of drugs or

drug activity on the premisess. sSo The Oakland Housing Authority has no reason to evict her.

So therefore in the Ballad of the Lord and in A Fair Housing Act Challenge to Federal

No-fault Evictions from Public Housing There is very much in common. In both situations the

lower class gets mistreatedpounded on by the upper class. I say this just to show how on a daily

basics how bad low class people are treated. Also to show how upper class people look at and

treat low class people. Sometimes race doesnt matter when coming to being mistreated. People

will treat lower classyou worset if they feel they are worth more or have more than you.you.
 Ervin4

Works Cited

Mays, Kelly J., and Langston Hughes. Ballad of the Landlord. The Norton Introduction to

Literature, W.W. Norton & Company, 2017, pp. 519520.

Cohen, Melissa A. Vindicating The Matriarch. Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, vol. 16,

no. 1, 2009.