Structuralism: Sings of The Father-Saussure

STRUCTURALISM
THE structuralist movement was started in the France. There are only two main critics in this movement. The first
one is the Strauss and the Roland Barthes. Their point of view is that they things in the larger structure not in the
isolation. They think that everything should be seen in the context of that things. They are against the core of the
things. They think that things are different in the essence. This movement focuses on the meaning that the meaning
are always outside meanings. The outside meanings mean that the meanings to the things are given by our minds.
Society gives the meanings to the to the things. The thing’s inner does not matter in this movement. The meanings
are attributed to the things.
The example of the Donn poem Good Morrow is the best to study. When we see this poem in the point of the
structuralist, we will see its origin. We will see the feature of that genre in which it is written. Every poem has its own
genre and every genre has its own feature which relates to the English language.
This poem relevant genre is the Alba, there are some cultural structures in this poem like concept of the courtly love.
But if the structuralists will take it further away from the text to large and abstract questions of the genre. They do
not take it closer to the text. The genre of this poem is the chicken and the egg is the poem. The chicken which is the
genre is the most important for the structuralists and the egg is for the liberal humanists.
In this movement the individual text is not important. The text should be seen in the larger structure rather than as
an individual text.
The arrival of the structuralism in the England is in 1970s. this becomes a great of deal of the discussion in England
because they do not believe in the larger abstract issues which is the manifestation of the structuralists. The
Cambridge revaluation in this regard is very important. They strongly believe in to read only text alone. They are
text based. Structuralism in this sense devalued the text-based theory. And some questions. (see from the book).
Sings of the father- Saussure

The roots in the thinking the swiss linguistics Saussure was very important in the scientific study of the language. He
concentrated on the functions and patterns of the language which is used in the today world. He gives the three
points about the language.
First is about that the words are purely arbitrary.
The words are not themselves positive or negati9ve but the society gives meaning to it. Society makes them all this.
Meaning are outside not inside. Before the usage of the words they are motivated but after the usage they are u
unmotivated.
Secondly, he says that the words are relational. There is always a need of relation to define them. Relations of the
words are also wit the speakers. No word can be defined in the isolation to the other. The definition of the words
depends upon the relation with other adjoining words.
Thirdly, the Saussure says that language constitutes our world. Meaning is always given to the words by human
minds ad they are always expressed I the language. It is not already contained within the things.
The reality is constructed. (examples from the book pg. no 42. Polarograph.)
Language Is constituting the world, not just reflecting it. (example of the color).
We have a year not 4 seasons the seasons are just a way to see the year.
Saussure exposes that the language is arbitrary, relational, constituting.
This helps very much to this movement because they have gotten a model in which things are related to the other
things and they create a larger structure.
The scope of the structuralism.
The work of this movement is not just for the language and literature but also about the Saussure model that how
language work is transferable and how all the signifies work. Strauss applied the structuralists outlook to the
interpretation of a myth. He tells that the only myth has no meaning. the work of the individual is not understood.
Which he calls it as parole and but it can be understood by seeing its position to the whole cycle. The whole cycle
means the larger structure.
He used this method while interpreting the myth of the Oedipus. He took the myth of Oedipus and then saw the
whole cycle of the tales connected to Thebes.
On this method the story and the cycle it is part of the reconstituted in terms of the basic opposition. He, here uses
the Saussure concept of the binary opposition.
The complete story can be seen in the larger structure and the larger structure can be seen as an overall network of
the basic binary opposition. this is the process of the movement that how they go from particular to the general.
They place an individual work in the larger structure. So, for example if we have to read a novel of writer, we would
have to read its some novel or the features of that genre.
(read introduction about Roland Barthes from book pg.46 and 47)
Structuralist criticism: examples

Barthes in his book S/Z gives a method. The method is that he divides the story into 561 lexies or unit of meanings
and then he classifies this into five codes and demands that this should be a basic structure for all the narrators.
Barthes is also considered as the post structuralist. We can take him as the post structuralist from the publication of
his essays the death of the Author. His best work S/Z is for the structuralist movement. The truth is really is that this
book lies on the fence of the structuralism and the post structuralism. We can take him as part of the both
movements. The book Death of the Author shows that he belongs to the post structuralism. Here he says the birth
of the reader is ransomed by the death of the author.
Five codes of the Roland Barthes
1. The proairetic code. This code shows the actions. How the action is starting. This code shows the
indications of the actions.
2. The hermeneutic code. This code works for the suspense. Here, according to Roland Barthes, writer
uses some questions and enigmas to create the suspense.
3. The cultural code this code is about the common knowledge. This code contains refences out beyond
the text.
4. The semic code this code is linked to the theme. In this code the particular name or word creates a
character.
5. The symbolic code this code is also related to themes but on the larger scale. It shows the contrast of
the binary opposition. These binary opposition are the basic of the structuralist to the human way of
perceiving and organizing reality.
Summary of the Five codes from original S/Z

As chance would have it (but what is chance?), the first three
lexias-the title and the first sentence of the story-have al-
18
ready provided us with the five major codes under which all
the textual signifiers can be grouped: without straining a point,
there will be no other codes throughout the story but these
five, and each and every lexia will fall under one of these five
codes. Let us sum them up in order of their appearance, without
trying to put them in any order of importance. Under the
herm~ut!~c.04e, we list the various (fonnal) terms by which
·an enigmii'can be distinguished, suggested, formulated, held in
suspense, and finally disclosed (these tenns will not always
occur, they will often be repeated; they will not appear in any
fixed order). As for the ~es, we merely indicate them-without,
in other words, trying either to link them to a character
( or a place or an object) or to arrange them in some order so
that they form a single thematic grouping; we allow them the
instability, the dispersion, characteristic of motes of dust,
Rickers of meaning. Moreover, we shall refrain from structuring
the symbolic grouping; this is the place for multivalence
and for reversibility; the main task is always to demonstrate
that this field can be entered from any number of points,
thereby making depth and secrecy problematic. Actions (tenns
of the proairetic code) can fall into various sequences which
should be indicated merely by listing them, since the proairetic
_sequence is never more than the result of an artifice of reading:
whoever reads the text amasses certain data under some generic
titles for actions (stroU, murder, rende:cvous), and this
-ti!le embodies the seq,~enc~; the sequence exists when and because
it can be given a name, it unfolds as this process of naming
takes place. as a title is sought or confinned; its basis is
therefore more empirical than rational, and it is useless to
attempt to force it into a statutory order; its only logic is that
of the "already-done" or "already-read" -whence the variety of
sequences (some trivial, some melodramatic) and the variety
of terms (numerous or few); here again, we shall not attempt
to put them into any order. Indicating them (externally and
19
intema1ly) will suffice to demonstrate the plural meaning entangled
in them. Lastly, ~e c~tural codes are references to a
science or a body of knowledge; in drawing attention to them,
we merely indicate the type of knowledge (physical, physiological,
medical, psychological, literary, historical, etc.) referred
to, without going so far as to construct (or reconstruct)
the culture they express.

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STRUCTURALISM

Sings of the father- Saussure

First is about that the words are purely arbitrary.

Saussure exposes that the language is arbitrary, relational, constituting.

Structuralist criticism: examples

Five codes of the Roland Barthes

Summary of the Five codes from original S/Z

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