Skip to main content

Structuralism and Literary Criticism: Gerard Genette

Thinking activity:

Structuralism and Literary Criticism


➧  Being a structuralist critic, how would you analyse literary text or TV serial or Film? You can select any image or TV serial or film or literary text or advertisement. Apply structuralist method and post your write up on your blog. Give link of that blog-post in the comment section under this blog.


In literary theory, structuralism is an approach to analyzing the narrative material by examining the underlying invariant structure.

For example:-  A literary critics should apply one type of pattern or structure in their writings. They don't applying something new or we can say something unique in their writings. 

Like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In both texts a girl and a boy fall in love (a "formula" with a symbolic operator between them would be "Boy + Girl") despite the fact that they belong to two groups that hate each other ("Boy's Group - Girl's Group" or "Opposing forces") and conflict is resolved by their death.

The versatility of structuralism is such that a literary critic could make the same claim about a story of two friendly families ("Boy's Family + Girl's Family") that arrange a marriage between their children despite the fact that the children hate each other ("Boy - Girl") and then the children commit suicide to escape the arranged marriage; the justification is that the second story's structure is an 'inversion' of the first story's structure: the relationship between the values of love and the two pairs of parties involved have been reversed."
Using this approach I would like to analyse this particular image.

Here I'm given the example of structuralist method which is applied in movie Ramleela.





Ramleela directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The movie is related with many usual movies and some kind of common stories, like Romeo and Juliet, Ek duje ke Liye. 



In serial Swaragini Shekhar and Sharmistha they have same storyline or we can say that same structure like their families are enemies of each other.

In some kind of stories there are same kind of structure but their way of presentation was different one.
  
Structuralist critics like, Gerard Genette, Ferdinand Saussure, Roland Barthers, Claude Lavi-Strauss contributed the field of structuralism. Ferdinand Saussurs's three terms:
1.Languge
Langue and
Parole

 2. Sign = Signifier + Signified ( Signified)

 3. Diachronic vs. Synchronic study
Ferdinand Saussure was applied this study which whatever meanings are articulated.

 Saussure also says about linguistic structures; firstly arbitrary- the meanings we gave to words is arbitrary.

 Secondly the meanings of words are relational.

 Thirdly language  'constructs' our world, it does not lebel or record it.

➧ Significance of words 'Fire' and 'Ice' in both the poems and its meaning just as separate words.


There are two poems which we have discussed today 

 Fire and ice by Robert Frost and
 Ice and fire by Edmund Spenser

Both the poems have different meaning and represents the symbol and sign. One poem shows us the capacity of disaster and second was the different one which shows the possibilities between fire and ice. Poem represents the desire and hate. We can also see the paradox between the fire and ice, and the for destruction both are the sufficient.

Thank you 😊

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uncle Podger Hangs a Picture

The short story ‘Uncle Podge Hangs a Picture’ is full of comic incidents which is adopted from 'Three Men in a Boat' and  written by Jerome K. Jerome. The story revolves around Uncle Podger, who tries to hangs a picture on wall, from that activity he makes readers laugh. He thinks himself to full of ability and skills, he can do any sort of job, but in reality he involves his family members to do such job.  Uncle Podger assigns some work to all the family members and asks them to do it with maximum efficiency. He creates whole mess and he blames Aunt Maria to be responsible for creating the fuss.  Uncle Podger is the kind of person who annoyed everyone around him. They all know his capabilities, even if he doesn’t. He may mean well, and he may mean to be helpful, but all he will do is to cause more problems.
9 comments
Read more

T.S.Eliot : Tradition and Individual Talent

Thinking Activity on Tradition and Individual Talent 1.  How would you like to explain Eliot's concept of Tradition? Do you agree with it?                                 Yes, I'm agree with the Eliot's views. He point out the tradition as that the tradition is matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, you must obtained it by  great labour. Talent has no connections with the inhabitants, we have to work hard to catch the talent.                   Being a part of tradition we have to do great labour, it involves historical sense which involves appreciation not only of the pastness of past but also it's presence. 2  What do you understand by Historical Sense?                 " The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its pre...
9 comments
Read more