Structuralism

Structuralism is…an intellectual movement that begin in France in the 1950s

roots in linguistics and social and literary theory

the belief that things cannot be understood in isolation; they have to be seen in the context of the larger structures that they are part of

20th Century Western Literature

20th Century American

Historical Fiction

Depression Era

Historical Fiction

John Steinbeck’s Works

Grapes of Wrath

The Pearl

Of Mice & Men

Structuralist believe…the meanings we give to words are purely arbitrary, and that these meanings are maintained by convention only. There is no inherent connection between a word and what it designates. The word ‘hut’, for instance, is not in any way ‘appropriate’ to its meaning.

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Structuralist believe…that the meanings of words are relational. No word can be defined in isolation from other words. The definition of any given word depends upon its relation with other ‘adjoining’ words. For example, that word ‘hut’ depends for its precise meaning on its position in a chain of words

hovel - shed - hut - house - mansion - palace

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Structuralist believe…language constitutes our world, it doesn’t just record it or label it. Meaning and the word are create by the human mind, and constructed by and expressed through language: it is not already contained within the thing.

Key to this is the choice between paired alternatives like ‘terrorist’ or ‘freedom fighter.’ There is no neutral or objective way of designating such a person, merely a choice of two terms which ‘construct’ that person in certain ways.

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Play close attention to the pairing of opposites

Light-Dark

Up-Down

Man-Woman

Child-Adult

called: Dyadic Pairs

Roland Barthes

A French structuralist who believed all narrative structures could be analyzed using 5 codes:

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(pronounced Roll-an Bart)

Roland Barthes (pronounced Roll-an Bart)

Proairetic Hermeneutic Cultural

Semantic Symbolic

The Proairetic Code A plot device identifying actions in a story.

Can sometimes be used to create tension in a story—what will happen next. Can also be used lead the reader astray and hence create further tension

“The ship sailed at midnight.”

“They knocked on the door.”

The Hermeneutic Code A sentence that raises questions and is not fully explained. Keeps the reader guessing and creates suspense. Ways of avoiding the truth:

• Snares: deliberately avoiding the truth. • Equivocations: partial or incomplete answers. • Jammings: openly acknowledge that there is no answer

to a problem. “He knocked on a certain door in the neighborhood of Pell Street’ makes the reader wonder who lived there, what kind of neighborhood it was, and so on.

The Cultural Code Sentences that contain references beyond the text to what is regarded as common knowledge.

“Agent Angelis was the kind of man who sometimes arrives at work in odd socks.”

This sentence evokes a pre-existing image in the reader’s mind of the kind of man this is – a stereotype of bungling incompetence, perhaps, contrasting that with the image of brisk efficiency contained in the notion of an ‘agent’.

The Semantic Code Specific words evoke meanings (connotations) directly connected to theme and characterization.

“June the eighth: a fine morning, nine-fifteen by the program change on the car radio, also nine-fifteen exactly as he checked the time on his ______ watch.”

[multi-function, Swiss, Swatch, Timex, Pocket, Mickey Mouse, sweat-covered]

Flickers of

meaning

The Symbolic Code This code is also linked to theme, but on a larger scale. It consists of contrasts and pairings related to the most basic binary polarities – male and female, night and day, good and evil, life and art, and so on. These are the structures of contrasted elements which structuralists see as fundamental to the human way of perceiving and organizing reality.

A structuralist uses these codes and • Looks for parallels, repetitions, patterns,

contrasts in a text.

• And they look for them in plot, structure, character/motive, situation/circumstance and language/imagery.

Want to learn more? Read…

Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory by Peter Barry

1. Reread The Osage Orange Tree and highlight the different codes:

• Proairetic - Yellow

• Hermeneutic - Blue

• Cultural - Green

• Semantic - Red

• Symbolic - Pink

2. Look for paired opposites—in the codes, structure, symbolic, semantic, characters, language, situation, etc.