Smouldering Charcoal by Tiyambe Zeleza can be considered as a proletarian novel wherein the author depicts the pitiable living conditions of the population fallen in the pitfalls of dearth under the reign of Hastings Banda. The bankrupt government of Banda that does not care about its population’s well-being is responsible for this misery. Instead of accepting the fate of his characters, Zeleza engages them in waves of protests which aim at coming out of the quagmire of poverty. This paper x-rays these protests in a Marxist perspective.