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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 😊

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