Literary Analysis Essay on 'Sisters' by Kollontai

Introduction

Kollontai's 'Sisters' is a short story set in 1920s Russia. In the story, a woman is confiding in Kollontai at a delegate's conference. The main character of the story is a woman who has just left her husband and is afraid that she may end up in prostitution since she has nowhere else to go. The woman has been having a hard time in her relationship with her husband and their marriage was finally broken. In their marriage, her husband was against the idea of her going to work. He wanted her to be a home wife. On the contrary, the woman prefers to go to work rather than stay at home. Their marriage gets worse when the couple loses their daughter. Her husband resorts to coming home drunk and bringing prostitutes along. The wife is horrified and humiliated by her husband's behavior. She, therefore, struggles to save their worsening relationship by chasing away the prostitutes that the husband brings home. Though the story is set in Russia, a communist country, it gives us a clear understanding of the effects of the ownership of the factors of production and their effect of the labor market as described by Karl Marx.

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As the woman narrates, it is through her encounter with the second prostitute that the woman realizes that she has a connection to the prostitutes (Jinee 1405). Just like her, the second prostitute is desperate in life. After talking to her and getting to know her better, we get to know that the prostitute is a well-educated woman who neither has a place to call home nor a means of sustaining herself. Through her encounter with the prostitute, the woman realizes that she could easily end up in the same situation if she divorced her husband (Jinee 1405). Through the portrayal of women in society, we are able to observe the effects of having a male-dominated society. Furthermore, the story also brings out the condition of the labor market. The story, therefore, gives us a better platform to understand feminism and the sale and purchase of labor as described by Karl Marx.

First of all, an analysis of the short story brings out Karl Marx's conclusion that capitalism is not natural. As Marx believes, the economic system we have is deeply rooted in social institutions. The economic system of any given nation depends on the social structures of the nation work (Cohen 338). Coincidentally, nearly all nations on earth in the 20th century were male-dominated. In Kollontai's story, the social structures of that particular society only supported men to work (Jinee 1408). The attitude of women getting employed is brought out in the husband's view of how a wife is supposed to be. The woman character telling the story was not in good terms with her husband. While she wanted to go to work and make money, her husband thought that she should stay at home. The woman's husband clearly brings out men's attitude towards women working. Furthermore, the attitude towards women in the labor market is also brought out when the woman interacts with the second prostitute. We all learn that the second prostitute was a very educated woman. However, she lives in poverty due to her inability to secure a job. In fact, she ends up in prostitution since she does not have any other way to make ends meet (Jinee 1410). Once she talks to the second prostitute, the woman reflects her own life on the prostitute. She realizes that she could easily end up in the same situation were it not for her being married. Her husband, on the other hand, is an executive in a government trust company. Though we expect them to be happily married, their marriage is not in good shape as they are both struggling to cope up with the social economic reality.

Another aspect of Karl Marx's sale and purchase of labor theory is the labor-power concept. Throughout the various occupations of the characters in the story, we conclude that the money that the laborers receive is just a sufficient amount to sustain their lives. Let's get back to Karl Marx's ideology. Marx classifies human labor as a commodity. In this case, a laborer has to be willing to sell their labor at the market and there has to be a willing buyer work (Cohen 354). As Marx puts it, the laborer allows his labor to be at the disposal of the willing buyer since it is like a commodity once he agrees to sell their labor. Nevertheless, labor-power has to satisfy certain social conditions for it to qualify as a commodity in the market work (Cohen 357). In our case, men and women alike have their own unique labor markets as defined by the social-cultural setting in the story. In the particular social setting of the story, women are willing to sell their labor at the market. However, there seem to be no willing buyers as most of the women in the story are portrayed to be either dependent on their husbands or participating in prostitution for survival. The concept of the lack of market for women's labor is well brought out by the second prostitute. Despite her being well educated, she is unable to secure a place in the labor market (Jinee 1412). As a result, she ends up in prostitution. Moreover, the story of the woman and her husband further shows that the society in which they lived was not accommodative of human labor. In other words, women labor in the society discussed in the short story does not satisfy the set social conditions at the time.

The socio-economic revolution of any country over the years determines the sale and purchase of labor in that particular country work (Cohen 360). For instance, each country has its own property laws which determine how property is distributed across all the social classes and also across gender lines. Similarly, other related laws determine the accessibility of the factors of production. What makes people sell their labor is their inability to access factors of production. A laborer does not have the ability to acquire the necessary factors of production through which they can exercise their labor and claim the product of their labor as their own. In other words, the products of a worker's labor belong to the owner of the factors of production, the employer. In the context of the story, the world is male-dominated. Women do not, therefore, have access to the factors of production. As the story reveals to us, women are forced to survive through unhealthy means such as engaging in prostitution and depending on marriages (Jinee 1412). Through the second prostitute and the main woman character's desire to work, we learn that women in the society do not have a means through which they can produce or sell their labor in the labor market. As a matter of fact, women are forced by their situation to be sex works. Through their sex services, women are exploited by their clients. Marx states that the value of labor is the power needed to sustain that labor. This exactly what we see in the sex workers. They get low pays from their clients. In short, women only get what is enough to enable them to sustain their lives. That is the reason why they live so desperately.

Lastly, Marx's ideology that the current state of the sale and purchase of labor market is closely tied to social and economic revolutions is well brought out. Kollontai's story brings this out by telling the story through the main woman character confiding to someone at a delegate's conference. Through the use of the story within a story technique, we are made to conclude that the main woman character had finally resolved that her society needed a socio-economic revolution. The woman had been motivated to fight for women's right after interacting with other women in the society and realizing that they suffered the same fate due to the societal organization of Russia at that time. In her interaction with the second prostitute, the narrator calms down after resolving that it was the societal organization of 1920s Russia that was to blame for the women suffering. She does not, therefore, take on the second prostitute for making her marriage miserable. Instead, she gets radicalized to fight for women's rights in the then Russia. In conclusion, Kollontai's 'sisters' succeeds in not only showing us the need for feminism but also giving us a better understanding of the labor sale and purchase market as described by Karl Marx.

Work Cited

Cohen, Gerald A. The labor theory of value and the concept of exploitation. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1979.

Lokaneeta, Jinee. Alexandra Kollontai and Marxist Feminism. Economic and Political Weekly, 2001.