Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide

The chapter opens with a definition of structuralist literary criticism as the analysis of literary structures, like composition or characterization, and how they function across groups of texts or how a specific text demonstrates these structures. Structural criticism is not the analysis of a literary structure as it relates to the work’s meaning or literary value. Structuralism as a whole is the study of “the fundamental structures that underlie all human experience and, therefore, all human behavior and production” (182). Structuralism focuses on the interplay between the visible world (surface phenomena) and the invisible world (the underlying structures that govern these phenomena). 

For example, the “invisible” structure of phonemes governs the “visible” words of the English language. These structures are created by innate processes in the human mind, which implies that the world appears to have order because the mind imposes this order.

Structuralists define a structure as a “conceptual system” that has wholeness, transformation, and self-regulation. “Wholeness” means that it is a unified system distinct from its parts, e.g., “water is whole” and composed of oxygen and hydrogen (parts; 184). “Transformation” means that it is an evolving system, e.g., phonemes can be turned into new words. “Self-regulation” means that transformations must adhere to the existing structure, e.g., new words use existing phonemes.

Structural Linguistics

Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure developed structural linguistics between 1913 and 1915. Saussure broke with the assumption that words were tied to the objects they signified and that language changed over time. Instead, he argued that language is “a structural system of relationships among words as they are used at a point in time” (185). He termed this structure langue (French for “language”) and the specific words (its parts) parole (French for “speech”). Saussure argued that language components arise from the need to denote differences, especially binary oppositions, like male/female, good/evil, etc.

A word is a linguistic sign consisting of the signifier (“sound-image”) and the signified (“the concept to which the signifier refers”; 185-86). The connection between the signifier and signified is arbitrary and decided by “social convention.” Note that signifiers refer to mental concepts rather than physical objects. This means that our perceptions of the world are driven by language and can be different depending on the language used. For instance, the Spanish verbs for “to be,” ser and estar, express permanent and impermanent states of being, respectively, that shape understanding of what it means “to be” differently than in English.

Structural Anthropology

Structural anthropology is the analysis of common structures across human cultures. It was created by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss in the 1950s. For example, all human cultures have rites of passage (the langue, or structure), but their expression varies across societies, such as bar mitzvah, quinceañera, etc. (the parole, or particular expression of the structure). Lévi-Strauss was especially interested in the common structures of myths across cultures. He termed these structures “mythemes.” One example of a mytheme is “a hero killing a monster” (187).

Semiotics

Semiotics is the structural analysis of “sign systems,” or collections of objects and behaviors that express meaning. This can include almost anything, including language, images, music, and activities. Tyson summarizes “famous” semiotician Roland Barthes’s semiotic analysis of a professional wrestling match as an example. Barthes identified that each professional wrestling match was structured so that it ended with “the triumph of goodness over evil” to create a vicarious reaction in the audience (langue) but that the specific wrestlers and their types varied within the structure (parole; 188).

In semiotics, the signifier can be “anything perceived by the senses” (189). Semiotics relies on the same formula of sign = signifier + signified used in structural linguistics. However, study of the sign is limited to symbols rather than indexes (a signifier with a direct link to the signified, e.g., a clock will always point to the time) or icons (a signifier that looks like the signified, e.g., a photograph). A symbol is a sign where there is an arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified that is created by social understanding, like how contemporary society has decided that the color blue represents masculinity and pink femininity. Semiotics analyzes “the symbolic function of sign systems” to determine their semiotic codes or structural components (189).

Structuralism and Literature

Literature is particularly important to structuralists because they view the world as ordered by language and literature is a “verbal art.” They focus especially on narrative in literary texts. The “langue” of literary works is often referred to as “grammar,” which refers to the underlying literary structures that give the work meaning. For instance, Jay Gatsby is the surface phenomenon that expresses the underlying structure of “hero.” Structuralists believe that these underlying literary structures are closely related to “structures of human consciousness” (191).

The Structure of Literary Genres

In the landmark Anatomy of Criticism, Canadian literary theorist Northrop Frye establishes his “theory of myths,” which categorizes the foundational elements of all literary works in the Western canon. He categorizes narratives into four mythoi (Greek plural for mythos):

1. Mythos of summer: an expression of an ideal world through romance and adventure (e.g., Sleeping Beauty)

2. Mythos of winter: an expression of the real world through irony and satire (e.g., Animal Farm by George Orwell)

3. Mythos of autumn: the movement from the ideal world to the real world expressed as tragedy (e.g., Shakespeare’s Hamlet)

4. Mythos of spring: the movement from the real world to the ideal world expressed as comedy (e.g., Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors)

Taken together, the four mythoi create the master narrative plot of the Western canon, the four stages of the quest:

1. Conflict-romance-summer

2. Catastrophe-tragedy-autumn

3. Disorder and confusion-satire-winter

4. Triumph-comedy-spring

Frye referred to this as “archetypal criticism” because it focuses on the repeated archetypes, or literary structures, across works. Frye also established a complex theory of modes that assesses how the protagonist’s power relates to their type and the work’s fictional mode (romance, irony, etc.).

Frye and structural analysis seek to categorize literary structures, understand their relationships, and find methods of representing “the structural system governing literature as a whole” (194).

The Structure of Narrative (Structuralist Narratology)

Tyson describes the work of three theorists, A. J. Greimas, Tzvetan Todorov, and Gérard Genette, and their contributions to the field of narratology, or the study in detail of texts to find their fundamental structures and their functions.

Greimas argued that humans structure meaning in language, narrative, and experience via two forms of opposed pairs, its opposite (A is the opposite of B) and its negation (-A is the opposite of -B; typically represented as the semiotic square). For example, the opposite of love is hate, and negation of love is the absence of love. This structure is found in literary narrative through plot formulas driven by “actants,” or the functions of the characters, as they transfer an entity from one to the other. 

Based on this foundation, Greimas established three plot types connected to different actants: stories of quest/desire driven by subject-object actants, stories of communication driven by sender-receiver actants, and subplots driven by helper-opponent actants. Greimas likewise categorized narrative sequences into three categories: contractual structures (making and breaking of agreements), performative structures (performance of tasks), and disjunctive structures (travel, movement, etc.).

This system, when applied, as Greimas did with the novels of Georges Bernanos, can determine the fundamental symbolic conflicts in the literary work.

Todorov argued that the structural units of narrative are tied to units of language (parts of speech). For instance, a character’s actions are tied to verbs. One of his units of narrative is the “proposition,” or the combination of a character with an “irreducible” action or attribute. A “sequence” is a combination of propositions. For example, “John is a soldier” is a proposition. A sequence is “John is a soldier. He went to war.”

Todorov used these and other categories to analyze texts in relation to their fundamental properties. For instance, Todorov claimed that “all actions in The Decameron can be reduced to three verbs: to modify, to transgress, to punish” and that this reflects the contested values of the society in which the author, Boccaccio, lived (197).

Genette studied Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past to create his narrative theory. Genette argued there were three levels of narrative:

1. Story: the series of events in the order in which they happened

2. Narrative: the words on the page

3. Narration: the act of telling the story by the narrator (who is somewhat distinct from the author)

The narrator in the work talks about their summer (narration) and what they did (story), which is then read (narrative).

Genette argued that story, narrative, and narration interact through tense (order, duration, frequency), mood (distance and perspective), and voice.

While their categories differ, Genette, Todorov, and Greimas all used their structural analyses of literary works to “address larger questions about literary meaning and its relationship to human life” (198). They are all examples of how theorists analyze The Relationship Between Language and Reality.

The Structure of Literary Interpretation

Jonathan Culler argues that there is a structural system of rules and codes that shape writing and interpretations of literature. Literary competence is the extent to which this system has been “internalized.” Culler believes that literary structure is actually a representation of this structural system of internalized rules and codes.

Some components of Culler’s theories are the following:

1. The convention of distance and impersonality: the knowledge that fictional narrative operates at a distance from real life

2. Naturalization: the assumption of a narrator and the acceptance of figurative language

3. The rule of significance: the assumption that literary works have deeper meanings (e.g., a rock is not just a rock but a symbol of toughness)

4. The rule of metaphorical coherence: the assumption that figurative language relates to the meaning of the work as a whole (e.g., in a romance a rose would represent love, not death)

5. The rule of thematic unity: the assumption that a work has a complete, cohesive meaning

Culler’s approach differs from that of reader-response theorists because it seeks to identify the foundational structures (langue) underneath reader responses (parole).

Some Questions Structuralist Critics Ask About Literary Texts

Tyson provides a series of questions that summarize structuralist approaches to literature, highlighting how understanding the foundational elements of works can yield new understandings. Topics include the following (201-02):

1. Applying Frye’s theory of mythoi or Robert Scholes’s theory of modes to determine the genre of a work

2. Analyzing the narrative of a work using Greimas’s theories of actants and narrative structures or Todorov’s schema of propositions

3. Analyzing tense, mood, and voice of a work using Genette’s theory of narrative levels

4. Assessing the formal elements of a work and to what degree they adhere to Culler’s theory of literary competence

5. Using semiotic theory to analyze cultural texts like advertising campaigns or public events

“Seek and Ye Shall Find”…and Then Lose: A Structuralist Reading of The Great Gatsby

In her structuralist reading of The Great Gatsby, Tyson uses Todorov’s notion of narrative grammar to argue that “all of the action in the novel can be reduced to three verbs: to seek, to find, and to lose” (202). She interprets this finding as a representation of the novel’s “rejection of the traditional seek-and-find quest formula” (202). Then, she uses this finding to apply Frye’s mythoi to the text and assess its complex structure of romance embedded within satire.

Tyson opens with a reflection on the “structural symmetry” of the novel. For instance, Gatsby’s “pursuit, attainment, and loss” of Daisy is a mirror of the same pattern from Gatsby’s youth (202). She then organizes the major plot points of the novel into a series of triads (sets of three), bounded by the narrator’s opening and closing meditations. 

She then lays out Todorov’s schema of propositions and applies it to The Great Gatsby. She finds that it follows the pattern of attribute (X lacks Y), action (X seeks Y), attribute (X lacks Y). She then supports this claim with specific examples from the text of “seek-find-lose grammars,” like Daisy’s series of failed relationships, and “seek-but-don’t find” grammars, like Nick’s unsuccessful search for “a purpose in life” (205). Tyson then connects this thwarted quest structure to the historical moment in which the novel was written, arguing that it is a reflection of pessimistic modernism that the characters do not find success—and therefore redemption—through their quests.

Tyson then applies Frye’s mythoi to the text, arguing that it “embeds” the summer mythos (ideal, romance, quest) within a winter mythos (realistic, ironic) wherein the narrator, Nick, is ultimately forced to contend with the fact that the romantic ideal is not possible in the modern world. Tyson then provides examples from the plot and textual analysis to support this claim. For example, she notes that Gatsby is portrayed as a mythic hero through valorizing language like descriptions of his “incorruptible dream,” while the rest of the characters live in the “gritty” real world as described by Nick. Tyson concludes that within the complex structure of the novel, the unrealized romance “haunts” the ironic realism of the work.

Questions for Further Practice: Structuralist Approaches to Other Literary Works

Tyson provides model questions to guide structural literary analysis. These questions explore how structural theories, such as Frye’s theory of mythoi, Genette’s theory of narrative, or Culler’s theory of literary competence, can deepen a reader’s understanding of texts. Topics include the following (211):

1. The application of Frye’s theory of mythoi to Heart of Darkness

2. The application of Todorov’s theory of propositions to Beloved, with a particular focus on analyzing the foundational elements of the various narratives of the text

3. The application of Genette’s theory of narrative to “A Rose for Emily,” with a particular focus on tense and voice

4. The application of Culler’s theory of literary competence to the poem “there is a girl inside” by Lucille Clifton

5. Analyzing the similarities of “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter and “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen using a theory of narratology