The Book Of Ruth In The Perspective Of Gender And Class

Since1970s, the theory of Marxist Criticism has aroused great attention due to its strong ideological and political sense. Written by Roland Boer, The Marxist Criticism of the Bible, is a critical introduction on Marxist biblical interpretation studies, which makes a more interaction between the Marxist literary criticism and the social-scientific studies of the Bible. In this essay, we will analyze his interpretation of the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible, which is titled as "Terry Eagleton:The Struggles of Ruth" in his book. He adopts the approach made by Eagleton whom combines Marxist criticism and Feminism together to do the literary reading.In the above chapter, Roland Boer points out that Eagleton considers The Rape of Clarissa as an effort to bring together Marxism, feminism and psychoanalysis in his interpretation of Samuel Richardson’s novel. He also treats Wuthering Heights as a study of class and ethnicity. Even though Eagleton is failed to have a full integration of Marxism, feminism and ethnicity, Bore argues that he provides a possible way of interpreting the Book of Ruth in a new perspective. In his reading of the Book of Ruth, Bore finds out that there are three areas which are ethnicity, gender and class that could provide an ideological solution of the problem of succession in the biblical texts of the Book of Ruth. This essay will make analysis on these areas.With the evaluation on Roland Boer’s Marxist feminist reading of the image of Ruth, this essay will comment the advantage and disadvantage of his biblical interpretation.