Essay Sample on Structuralist and Post-Structuralist Approaches in Analyzing Cultural Texts

Introduction

Structuralism approaches to literature have a different view of what we may believe to be the works of an author. Structuralists view the works of an author as merely a review or reassembling of already existing works. This may seem to be too simplistic for the mere reader but it may make more sense to a literary mind. The Structuralists see writing as a way for writers to express themselves, but as a way for writers to express already existing works in a different way, leading to the term anti-humanism being coined. This term has widely been used by structuralists, especially in the modern era while responding to literary criticism, they do not approve of literary criticism because to them this works already existed even before the author.

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In a book like say, Henrik Ibsen's an enemy of the people for example, the protagonists, like Dr. stockman, Petra, and Kathrine stockman may be taken to be the units, while the antagonistic characters such as Morten Kill, peter stockman, Hovstad, aslaksen, billing and the masses are the rules. Analyzing this book from a Structuralists point of view, in the story, these groups make the structures. The rules and the units in this case have different views about the baths. The units in this case are good and victims in a corrupt society. In the end in this case, the units have to lose. The structure is defined by the structuralists' belief and the intention of the piece of literature. The structuralists view an enemy of the people as a culmination of structures containing the units and the rules. The structures all come into place at the end of the book. Therefore, the book cannot come before the structures, at least from a structuralists view. The rules control the units, and in the end, we have an ending to the story, where Dr. Stockman loses his Battle and goes into exile. When structuralists views the book, he won't just see a book, an enemy of the people, but the parts that make it, the units, rules, the irony and imagery lying within it and finally, the ending. The structuralistic viewpoint in this case does not try to analyze the story by using sense and theory, but by only analyzing the structures. They try to make the complex nature of an enemy of the people to the simplest representation as units and rules.

In a sense, structuralism, Marxism, and hermeneutics are all peas in a pod. Today, the difference may not be visible, but at one point, it was. The basis of Hermeneutics is how the reader responded to literature and the reader's interpretation of any piece of literature. This was the simplest form of language and culture. Formalism, structuralism, semiotics, and poststructuralist later replaced this (Selden, 2009). These were all best on the text and structure of the literature. Formalism was used to present literature in the light of how the author viewed it, meant to express their skill and technical prowess. Formalism seemed to create a feeling that the form of the literature was more significant to the content. This was unlike the traditional times where content had more allure to form and seemed to be more significant while evaluating literature. Formalism was in three models, namely, machine, organic and system. Machine was meant to provide literary criticism to works, while organic shows how literature is made up of different parts that are all alive in different ways and are coexistent in nature; system, on the other hand, shows how literary texts are products of the entire literary and Metasystem of interacting literacy (Selden, 2009). The narrative theory is one of that is key while expressing formalism. It gives a formal distinction between story and plot. Russian formalists view plot as the structured form of a story in a way that befits the prowess of the author. Story, on the other hand, is viewed as the raw, unstructured form of a plot that has not been structured in any given way; it becomes plot after being structured. This is similar to Aristotle's definition of plot as an arrangement of incidents (Selden 2009). Art is viewed in many ways, but the free motif, which is derived from a motif, is seen as the focus of art. A motif is the smallest form of plot; the bound motif is what is required by the story, while the free motif is what is essential from the point of view of the story. The narrative theory, therefore, becomes key when explaining formalism.

While formalism is key to understanding text and structure, another key aspect is structuralism. Structuralism views literary works as constantly changing systems where elements are structured in the foreground and background. Structuralism had many key ideas, chief among them being the shift from a historical to non-historical analysis, which featured in Ferdinand de Saussure's structural linguistics (Selden, 2009). Jacksons model of communication and Claude Levi-Strauss structural anthropology were also important. Strauss attempted to show why fantastical and arbitrary tales across different cultures in different parts of the world seemed to be similar (lecture notes). Strauss analyzed the myth of Oedipus in a structuralistic manner in its use in the linguistic model. He analyzes the opposition underlying the Oedipus myth that arises from the story on the origin of man, one view was that man was born from the earth while another was that man was born from coition. Several antitheses on the overvaluation of kinship ties and the undervaluation of kinship as Oedipus kills his father become visible; however, Strauss seems to be more interested in the structural pattern of the myth. He believes that the linguistic model will give the myth its meaning from the phonemic model. Gerard Gennette developed his theory of discourse. He refined Proust's distinction between story and plot divides the narrative into three levels, story, discourse, and narration (Selden, 2009). His verbal discourse presents events in which he appears as a character. The dimensions of narrative are related by three qualities of the verb, tense, mood, and voice. He brings to perspective the fact that we often fail to create a distinction between mood and the voice of the narrator.

In 1966, frontiers of the narrative provided a view on the problems of narration. In my view, this was a key event that led to the realization that formalism was taking root. Gennette considered the problems of the narrative theory by exploring three binary oppositions, diegesis and mimesis, which occurred in Aristotle's Poetics. This showed the distinction between mood and the narrator's voice (Selden, 2009). Normally, mood and a narrator's voice may seem to be one, with no distinction at all, however it becomes clear that there is a distinction that can be made clear by using different narrators. This shows the discourse between mood and a narrator's voice. He concludes that literary representation is not both the narrative and speeches, but only the narrative. The second opposition was narration and description. Narration and description are closely related, however, Gennette showed that there is a clear distinction between the two when viewing it from the point of view of the author. This also made a case for a distinction between the active and contemplative aspect of narration. A narration has different aspects to it; the active and contemplative aspects describe how narration may be complex.

During the later stages of formalism, Bakhtin School arose. It was however not part of the movement. It had little or no interest in structural linguistics and instead focused on language as a social phenomenon. Bakhtin's theories are very essential to analyze culture and society. Today, Bakhtin's theories on carnival are very important to understand society in terms of high and low culture (Selden, 2009). Carnival is a celebration that takes traditionally took place before Lent. This celebration was tolerated by the church, and in a sense, it tested the churches resolve. The participants of the event wore costumes and the world in a sense was turned upside down (lecture notes). The people, in a sense, would become whoever they wanted to be, just for a day. A doctor could turn into a princess, a king to a peasant farmer or even a peasant farmer to a king. This is what Bakhtin termed the grotesque. Bakhtin's Heteroglossia brings out the different meaning that can be brought about by a statement due to the difference in the utterance. The Bakhtin School formed the basis of structuralism (Selden, 2009). Heteroglossia refers to the basic conditions that govern the production of meaning in all social discourse. It shows how context defines the meaning of utterances that are heteroglot as long as they put in play plenty of social voices and their individual impressions. Bakhtin discussed carnival leading to its application to particular texts and the history of literary genres. An example is the festivities that are associated with carnival, bring out a sense in which everything that we consider authoritative, rigid, or serious can be subverted, loosened, and mocked. Bakhtin called the shaping effect of literary genes carnivalization (Selden, 2009). Examples of carnivalization include Socratic dialogue and the Menippean satire. Carnivalization is essential when analyzing cultural texts because it gives the different extremities of different conditions without actually changing anything. Cultural texts may have insufficient data or proof; carnivalization, however, attempts to water down the importance of the text and brings a satirical aspect to it

In ancient Menippean satire, the three planes of heaven (Olympus), the underworld, and earth are all treated to the logic of carnival. For example, the Menippean satire that tells a story about the underworld and what happens to leaders when they lose their leadership positions. In the underworld when leaders such as emperors lose their crowns, they go down to the level of beggars (Selden, 2009). Carnival shows how ancient Menippean satire can be analyzed. This satire uses carnival to show the thin line that exists between the wealthy and the poor. The emperor may be the ruler of the land, the highest power at the time. However, the satirical story brings in the aspect of carnival to show that, once the emperors stripped of his lordship, he slips down the ranks to be a mere beggar. Carnival helps to analyze this text without actually influencing the reader. Bakhtin's emphasis on carnival promotes the idea that major literary works may be multileveled and resistant to unification (Selden, 2009).

Authors of post-structuralism criticize structuralism, most commonly rejecting the self-sufficiency of structuralism and interrogating the binary oppositions that are in the structure of structuralism. The post-structuralists built a theory that argues that founding knowledge on pure experience or systematic structures is impossible. Saussure's linguistic theory rejects the notion that the dominant word in binary opposition depends on its subservient counterpart. A word like signifier and its subservient counterpart signified are two peas in a pod. Some may see them as the same word (Selden, 2009); however, Saussure notices that there is no necessary connection between the two words. In France, the word for mutton and sheep is the same, Mouton. This shows the inconsistency of the binary opposition theory. One may go to the dictionary to look for the meaning of signified while another person may look for the noun signifier.

If a poststructuralist analyzes a book, say, The River Between, he realizes that the author Ngugi wa Thiongo probably had a direction and theory he wanted to prove with the story. However, a poststructuralist sees many different possibilities with the book an enemy of the people; he can see very many subplots and may see a d...