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Structuralism & Narratology
Born in 1950’s France
Arrived in 1970’s Britain
Ferdinand de SaussureLinguist
Claude Levi-StraussAnthropologist
Roland BarthesLiterary Critic
Structuralism in a nutshell:
Things cannot be understood in isolation – they must be seen in the context of the larger structures that they are part of.
Unlike Liberal Humanism, a Structuralist approach takes you further and further from
the text
The Liberal Humanist Approach
We must look closely at the egg – we need
not concern ourselves with the chicken!
The Structuralist Approach
Determining the precise nature of the chicken is essential if
we are to say anything intelligent
about eggs!
Structuralism was a radical revisioning of literary studies and caused heated debate
Structuralists concern themselves with how meaning is established and maintained
And focus upon the patterns and functions of language
The meaning of words is ARBITARY and maintained by convention only – language is a
separate system
Words are RELATIONAL and mutually defining
MansionHut
HousePalaceShedHovel
Words exist in ‘differencing networks’ and this is most apparent in ‘dyads’
Language CONSTITUTES our world rather than just labels and records it
Meaning is ATTRIBUTED and is not already contained in the thing
Terrorist or freedom fighter?
The natural cycles of the world are continuous – the division into 4 ‘seasons’ is constructed but as a consequence we see the world in these terms
The spectrum of colours is seamless and yet we contrive to suggest that there are 7 basic
colours
Can you think of other examples of how language ‘constitutes’ reality rather than faithfully
identifies something that is already in the world?
So, we come to see that language is:
ArbitraryRelational
Constitutive
Structuralism broadens its scope to include other sign systems as well as literary texts –
any of which can be ‘read’
Roland Barthes, in his 1957 text ‘Mythologies’ applied Structuralist analysis to combative arts
in popular entertainment
The two forms of entertainment present very different codes and sets of meanings –
consequently they are rarely mixed!
By placing each in a wider context, layers of significance are revealed that might not of otherwise been noticed – this is the basic principle of a Structuralist approach
Narratology is a branch of Structuralism that studies the nature of ‘story’ rather than
individual tales in isolation
A distinction is made between:
Story – the events as they happened
Plot – the edited, ordered, packaged and presented narrative
We look for:
ParallelsEchoes
ReflectionsRepetitionsContrastsPatterns
And we find them in:
PlotStructure
SettingCharacterImageryThemes
Language
Looking for patterns between stories was not something new but Narratologists developed
and extended the study.
Aristotle (Poetics)
Hamartia (sin / Fault)Peripeteia (reversal)Anagnorisis (realisation of truth)
These are all notably ‘inner events’
Vladimir Propp (The Morphology of the Folktale 1928)
31 FunctionsSpheres of Action
Concerned with events, not character
Gerard Genette(Narrative Discourse 1972)
6 Questions of plot
Concerned with the process of telling itself
1 – Narrative mode
Mimetic or Diegetic?
2 – Focalization
ExternalInternalZero focalization
3 – Authorial PersonaCovertNon intrusiveNon dramatised
OvertIntrusiveDramatisedHeterodiegeticHomodiegetic
4- Control of time
AnalepsisProlepsisChronological
5 – Packaging & Frames
Primary / Frame narrativeSecondary / Embedded narrative
Single ended (()
Double ended (())Intrusive ((((()...
6- Speech and Thought Representation
Direct & taggedDirect & selectively taggedIndirect taggedIndirect free
“Why,” John asked her. “I am in love,” she replied.
“Why,” John asked. “I am in love.”
John asked her to explain herself and she told him that she was in love.
Why had she behaved like that? Perhaps she was in love.
So, to summarise...
Narratology involves the study of:
Recurrent structures
The process of telling over what is told
Affinities between texts
By combining the models of study employed by a range of Structuralists, we may uncover
new meanings inherent in text
We do not need to reject close textual analysis in order to take advantage of Structuralist
practices!
Use all the tools at your disposal to explore text