Realism in The Balance - Social Totality

Social Totality

Lukács believed strongly that literature could yield effects on society at large. Indeed, Realism in the Balance begins with a quote from Georgi Dimitrov on the importance of Don Quixote to the bourgeoisie in their battle against feudalism. And it was traditional realism that Lukács believed could lead to Marxist revolution.

Lukács takes the Marxist stance that the proletariat is a restless force, full of potential but lacking direction. It is the duty of the author, then, to make evident to the proletariat the true nature of social relations. To Lukács, then, the struggle over the nature of "realism" was not an obscure theoretical squabble but a debate of importance that had phenomenal potential to change society. As he writes:

If literature is a particular form by means of which objective reality is reflected, then it becomes of crucial importance for it to grasp that reality as it truly is, and not merely to confine itself to reproducing whatever manifests itself immediately and on the surface. (1037)

"Whatever manifests itself immediately and on the surface" here is a clear jab at the techniques and perspectives of the Modernist schools.