Martin Anderson Nexo’s Novel “Pelle” the Conqueror” A Marxist Perspective
Keywords:
Self-realised and class-conscious proletarian leader, Autobiographical notes, Social realism, Marxism, Reformist SocialismAbstract
Martin Andersen Nexo was the most eminent Danish Marxist
proletarian fiction writer of the twentieth century. He came from the
working-class family background and wrote short stories, novels and
essays about the plights and sufferings of the proletariat class. His
novel “Pelle, the Conqueror” (1906) is one of the greatest proletariat
novels in world literature. Pelle, the protagonist of the novel emerged
as the self-realised and class-conscious proletarian leader from the
obscurity, drudgery and poverty of his rural peasant and shepherd
background. He was a common labouring lad, who served as a herd,
shoemaker's apprentice and qualified shoemaker. The novel enjoyed
enormous success and popularity that conquered the hearts of the
proletarians and peasants of the world. The novel is also neglected in
academia, criticism, literature and the world of research. The purpose
of this research paper is to conduct a textual analysis of this novel, as
a research method on the bedrock of Marxist literary hermeneutics in
an innovative and new way, tracing the all-round development of
Pelle’s personality who succeeded to organise his fellow-proletarians
on the platform of the Corporative movement, trade union and socialist
revolutionary movement. He founded the garden-city for the
betterment of his fellow-proletarian comrades
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