Sarah Cole and Marx

I think the most obvious way to connect Russel Banks’ “Sarah Cole” to our class discussions on Marxism would be through the clear differences between the characters, in class and standing and the role that difference plays in their relationship. Ron is a self-professed remarkably attractive lawyer, and Sarah is a overtly homely press plant worker. Ron lives in a comfortable apartment and dresses in suits, while sarah lives in a run-down tenement house and wears cowboy boots and hats. These two people are not from the same world, and it can be deduced that Ron sees sarah as below him, yet he is drawn to her out of curiosity. He wants to get to know someone of Sarah’s position first hand, almost as an experiment. Although the reader is told what a good guy Ron is, we quickly learn otherwise. Ron has very little reservation about using sarah. He exploits her, simply because he can, but when she makes demands to be compensated by making their relationship public he rejects her. He has the upper-hand and she, being of lower status, is at his mercy. This exploitation is what makes the story Marxist.
The communist ideal Marx and his supporters commonly speak of is the need to do away with class division and live as equals. As long as one group has more political, economical and social power than another, there will be conflict and exploitation. Ron and Sarah walk the thin line between their differences but ultimately cannot overcome them. As Gramsci points out in “The Intellectuals,” capitalism, and the exploitation and dominance of the lower class, will stay in place as long as the lower class continues to accept the place in society the upper class has cut out for them, and by admiring Ron for his looks and standing, Sarah is doing so. She allowed him the power and when she tried to take some of it back, she couldn’t. The revolution Marx calls for will not come about easily or without consequence, but its need is all the more obvious in this story, which focuses on the human aspect of it, not just the economical repercussions.