My Guide to Literary Theory: Structuralism

Structuralism is not solely a literary term, it is a methodology that is concerned with language and specifically signs and signification. Structuralists attempt to uncover the structures and patterns that underlie all cultural phenomena. Structuralism is not only applicable to literature, it is applicable to everything humans do from media to fashion. Structuralism can be a deeply complex cultural theory, and as my knowledge of linguistics is minimal, I will refrain from going into the finer details of this theory and focus this blog on its relevance to literature.

Ferdinand de Sausseure

Structuralist theory emerged out of the work of Ferdinand de Sausseure in the 20th Century. He established the notion of language as a sign system of unchanging patterns and rules. Following his death, his notes and lectures on structural linguistics were compiled and published in the work, A Course in General Linguistics. The work was highly influential and marks the starting point of structuralism. The theory began to take traction when it was picked up by Roman Jakobson and the Prague School of Linguists. At this point, structuralism was solely a linguistic theory it was the work of Claude Levi-Strauss that began to apply structuralism to wider subjects such as anthropology, and then, Roland Barthes who applied it to literary theory. Interestingly, Barthes was not only a key figure in the emergence of structuralist literary theory, but he was also part of its downfall as he later became associated with deconstructionism.

Roland Barthes

As with all the theories we have covered thus far, the author is again irrelevant to structuralism and is merely the person who creates the narrative. Equally, as in formalism, the text's meaning is also of little importance as structuralists analyse not the content, but the underlying structures that make up a text. Having said that, structuralists would claim they are concerned in meaning, but in a different sense. They are concerned with the meaning of linguistic signs and how these tie in with cultural structures. This means that, much to the ire of the New Critics, close reading was deemed unimportant and unnecessary.  If we think of a text as a machine, structuralism is about taking apart all of its components to analyse the way they fit and work together.  They are looking for patterns and certain principals that can be found in all novels. For example, all novels have plot, character, a conflict, a setting etc. Structuralism was very much considering itself a scientific pursuit, and it seeks to group texts to find the consistency between them. It does this by analysing narratives and relating them to wider structures. There are four main structures they look to place the text within. These are:

• The conventions of a particular literary genre
• The network of intertextual connections
• A projected model of an underlying universal narrative structure
• A notion of narrative as a complex of recurrent patterns or motifs
  
  (Barry 2002)

An example of structuralist theory in practice is the work of Vladamir Propp who applied structuralist analysis on Russian folk tales and fairy stories. He studied all of the tales that he could find and began to break them down into chunks, or morphemes. Within those chunks, he identified 31 narratemes. These narratemes are functions or situations that occur within the story. For example, "Testing: Hero is challenged to prove heroic qualities" or "Delivery: The villain gains information". The 31 narratemes can be divided into 4 spheres that together make up the completed narrative. Those speres are introduction, the body of the story, the donor sequence and the heroes return (optional). I will not list all of the narratemes here, but if you want to see all the elements you can find them HERE. It is quite an interesting activity to try and place contemporary films and stories into this structure - they often fit very well. A more recent example of a structuralist analysis of plot is Christopher Booker's book The Seven Plots. The book, an accumulation of 35 years work, claims there are only 7 basic plots and everything from Great Expectations to Shrek fit into one of the seven. The seven plots are:

• Overcoming the Monster 
• Rags to Riches
• The Quest
• Voyage and Return 
• Comedy 
• Tragedy
• Rebirth

Structuralism in practice also places its focus of binaries that appear in texts. Critics should find all the oppositions that they can find in a text as these are indicators of linguistic and cultural structures. If, for example, we look at the fairy tale of Cinderella we find many binaries:

• Pretty Cinderella vs ugly step-sisters
• Cinderella is poor vs wealth of step-sisters
• Cinderella's goodness vs step-sister as evil
• Cinderella loses one slipper, but keeps the other

There is clearly some use in making these classifications, but there are also problems. For example, Booker's 7 plots are too broad to be of any use. Even if we can say he is accurate, he is simplifying works that are far more complex to reduce to one of these broad categories. The other problem with structuralism is that it is fundamentally flawed. It attempts to apply fixed structures to phenomena that are inherently unstable. The scientific rigour that structuralism seeks can not be applicable to incomprehensible human activity. The structures of language and culture are ambiguous in their very nature. Equally, there is no room for free will or agency if all that we do is determined by underlying structures. 

By the mid 60s and 70s structuralism was being attacked from all sides, including by Roland Barthes who was a former structuralist himself. Structuralism went out of fashion, but it still played an influential role in literary studies.  Many theories that developed in the wake of structuralism, came to prominence as critiques of structuralism. One of those theories we will review in my next blog; Deconstructionism.

 Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2009. Print.