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    Thelit - Structuralist Criticism

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    vemaaa
    This document discusses structuralist criticism in literature. It explains that structuralists seek to understand the underlying patterns and systems that inform how objects relate rather than examining individual objects alone. Structuralists believe there are invisible structures that govern how the visible surface elements of the world are organized. Literary structuralism analyzes works based on elements like wholeness, transformation, and self-regulation of the system formed by relationships between parts of the text. The document provides examples of how structuralism has been applied to linguistics by Saussure and to anthropology by Levi-Strauss.

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    Thelit - Structuralist Criticism

    Uploaded by

    vemaaa
    810 views3 pages
    This document discusses structuralist criticism in literature. It explains that structuralists seek to understand the underlying patterns and systems that inform how objects relate rather than examining individual objects alone. Structuralists believe there are invisible structures that govern how the visible surface elements of the world are organized. Literary structuralism analyzes works based on elements like wholeness, transformation, and self-regulation of the system formed by relationships between parts of the text. The document provides examples of how structuralism has been applied to linguistics by Saussure and to anthropology by Levi-Strauss.

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    This document discusses structuralist criticism in literature. It explains that structuralists seek to understand the underlying patterns and systems that inform how objects relate rather than examining individual objects alone. Structuralists believe there are invisible structures that govern how the visible surface elements of the world are organized. Literary structuralism analyzes works based on elements like wholeness, transformation, and self-regulation of the system formed by relationships between parts of the text. The document provides examples of how structuralism has been applied to linguistics by Saussure and to anthropology by Levi-Strauss.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    810 views3 pages

    Thelit - Structuralist Criticism

    Uploaded by

    vemaaa
    This document discusses structuralist criticism in literature. It explains that structuralists seek to understand the underlying patterns and systems that inform how objects relate rather than examining individual objects alone. Structuralists believe there are invisible structures that govern how the visible surface elements of the world are organized. Literary structuralism analyzes works based on elements like wholeness, transformation, and self-regulation of the system formed by relationships between parts of the text. The document provides examples of how structuralism has been applied to linguistics by Saussure and to anthropology by Levi-Strauss.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Theory of English Literature

    Structuralist Criticism
    Vema N. Riady

    120810020

    Structuralist criticism, or also called structuralism, is a term that headings

    broad subjects. It can be applied on so many subjects such as linguistics,

    cultural studies, anthropology, and of course, literature. This summary talks

    about structuralist criticism and how we can apply it on analyzing literary

    works.

    To begin with, we’ll see what the scholars do with the word ‘structure’ as the

    base of the term ‘structuralism’. The structuralists don’t try to find out the

    shape or the structure of an object, otherwise they try to find the structure

    or the system that takes role on the object. They’re not interested in

    evaluating a single object, but they are interested in evaluating sum of

    objects with similarities and find out the pattern. Then, from the pattern

    they’ll able to imply what is the underlying structure.

    Based on Tyson (198) ,“there are two fundamental levels in structuralism;

    the visible and the invisible … the visible is usually called as the surface

    phenomena” which are the things we can experience by our senses and we

    interact with it every day, for instance the soil, the plants, the languages,

    the words and so on. Of all the things exist in this world; there are small

    structures that underlie them. The plant can grow if it’s put on a soil and the
    plant will keep alive if we water it. We know how to plant something because

    we know the structure of planting. It means that if we only know the

    information without being able to organize and understand it, the

    information will be useless and has no meaning. The process or organizing

    and understanding are that next we called as structuring, a process which

    makes us being able to differentiate the objects and classify it into clusters,

    for instance the groups of healthy food, the groups of high fat food and the

    groups of low fat food.

    Consequently, we can assume that the structure is based on our ability in

    structuring the information. The order of this world is the order we impose it

    (Tyson 199), or in the other words, the world is being like this because that

    is how we perceive it.

    The structuralist defines structure as a theoretical system that has the

    following three elements: 1) wholeness, 2) transformation and 3) self-

    regulation. Wholeness means that the system works as a unified object, not

    as separated object. It consists of different parts with definite tasks and

    builds a working system. Secondly, transformation means that a structure is

    dynamic which means it’s able to change and a new material always being

    structured by the system (Tyson 200). The last element is self-regulation; as

    a working system, a structure always obeys its law and regulation. Though

    it’s capable to change, the changes never leave the track because the

    changes also belong to the system.

    As I mentioned above, structuralism can apply to so many subjects such as

    linguistics, anthropology and so on. Structural linguistics was developed by


    Ferdinand de Saussure. He called the structure of language as langue and

    speech as parole. He also suggested the idea of binary oppositions, which

    stated that we perceive one thing as the opposite of another, for example,

    we can understand ‘beautiful’ because we are able to understand what is

    ‘ugly’. Furthermore, Saussure also argued the concept of signifier +

    signified. Signifier is a ‘sound image’ or a mental imprint of linguistic sound

    and signified is the concept to which signifier refers (Tyson 202).

    Structural anthropology was developed by Levi-Strauss. He argued that all

    cultures in the world have the same underlying structure and the differences

    only seen in the surface phenomena. For instance, even though every

    culture has different wedding ceremony, wherever it is held the aim of the

    ceremony is still the same.

    Next, structuralism steps to semiotics.

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