structuralism & narratology

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