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Structuralism And Interpretation Of A Prose Passage

--Dr. Shailaja B. Wadikar

Ever since Aristotle, the term structure has come into prominence. Analyzing a
work of literature is analyzing the structure of that work. Structuralist criticism is
studying literature on the explicit model of linguistic theory. In the fifties, this mode of
criticism came into being at the hands of the French cultural anthropologist Claude Levi
Strauss. The mode of criticism is analogous to Saussures classification of language as
langue (that is, the system) and parole (that is, the actual utterance). Structuralist criticism
implies an underlying system that consists of the relationships among signifying elements
and their rules of combination.
Structuralist criticism viewed literature as a second order system based on the first
order system called language as its medium. The linguistic structure of a poem can be
analysed in terms of phonology, morphology, syntax, and style. That is why Jonathan
Culler describes the aim of structuralist criticism as constructing a poetics which stands
to literature as linguistics stands to language.1The difference between structural criticism
and a traditional criticism may be indicated as below :
i.

A literary work, in the hands of a structuralist becomes a text. The text is a

piece of writing that throws light on the play of components or elements that are
governed by certain literary conventions and codes.

ii.

The individual author is dissociated from the text. His mind and personality
or his intentions are not taken cognizance of in the structuralist approach to literature. For
Roland Barthes, the author is dead for the individual reader and, hence, is disassociated
from the text.2

iii.

Structuralism replaces the author by the reader as the focus of criticism. It is

not reader exactly but the impersonal activity of reading, that is the true focus of study.
So, what is read is not a text with meanings, but ecriture, that is, writing. So, a
structuralist critic attends to the linguistic elements, conventions, and codes and attempts
an impersonal reading of the text which leads to the establishment of an objective
meaning of words, phrases, sentences, myths, images, symbols, etc., that constitute the
text. The text is viewed as a system of signs with an underlying pattern of meanings.
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Roland Barthes is therefore, justified in distinguishing between the readerly text on the
one hand and the writerly text on the other.
For decades it has been observed that in majority of the colleges and universities, the
method that is followed for appreciation and interpretation of literature is lecture method.
The teacher goes on analysing the plot, the theme, the content, the narrative technique,
etc., and the students have to sit as passive listeners. So, the process becomes a dull and
monotonous activity. But learning can be made a lively, participatory activity.
The criticism in the latter half of 20th century does not seem to distinguish
between literary genres. In short, it is not necessarily by generic. The essential
components of a work of literature, be it a novel, a drama, or a lyric are thought to be
words, images, and symbols (formal features) apart from plot, character, or the authors
vision or world view (thematic feature).
Application of structuralism for interpretation of literature implies studying
literature on the explicit model of linguistic theory, which deals with the scientific study
of language. So, this approach introduces a new method of interpreting literature, where
the students are the active participant as they try to analyze imagery, diction, syntax,
rhythm, and then supplement this analysis to the exposition or thematic and symbolic
elements of a given text.

The Linguistic Background

Structuralism is complementary to formalism.3 Ferdinand de Saussures Course
in General Linguistics (1915), published posthumously, is considered the milestone in the
history of modern criticism, as it has been profoundly influential in shaping
contemporary literary theory. Another important name that is associated with
structuralism is Claude Levi-Strauss, the French anthropologist. Both of them lay stress
on the view that subjects should be separated from their humanistic content and should be
studied as pure formal structure. Structuralist approach tries to seek a system that can
investigate the individual components and can analyse their interrelations. The key
concept in Saussures approach to language is his distinction between langue and parole.
This distinction is essential to all later structuralist theories. The proper object of
linguistic study is the system which underlines any particular human signifying practice,
not the individual utterance. This means that if we examine specific poems, or myths, or
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economic practices, we do so in order to discover what system of rules - what grammar is

being used.4 Other distinctions proposed by Saussure are:
(i) Synchronic and Diachronic approaches;

(ii) Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic relationships;

(iii) Signifier and Signified.
Langue is an instinctive knowledge of the laws of language. It is a set of
impersonal rules and conventions. It is an involuntary activity of mind and is abstract.
Parole is the actual manifestation of language in speaking. It is individual and concrete.
Noam Chomsky later on has used the terms competence and performance for langue
and parole, respectively.
The study of language that deals with its description of a specific time is called
the synchronic study. The study of language, on the other hand, if it deals with the
changes in the course of time, (that is, the history of language and the development over a
period of time) is called diachronic study. Saussures emphasis is on the synchronic
approach, though he has not out rightly rejected the diachronic analysis. He thinks that
diachronic perspective deals with the process that is unrelated to the systems whereas
synchronic perspective provides a system so that language can be properly studied and
understood. The ultimate result is that the complex nature of language can be analysed
thoroughly well.
The poetic function, says Roman Jakobson, projects the principle of
equivalence from the axis of selection to the axis of combination.5 The well known
dictum is related to Saussures views on paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationship. The
words constitute signs and they have their relationships with each other which is very
often compared to the movements (and the relationship implicit between them) of the
pawns on the chess-board.6 Syntagmatic relationship shows a horizontal arrangement of
units as in a chain. The units may be sounds, words, sentences, etc. Paradigmatic
relationship shows a choice-based relationship. So, it is a vertical arrangement of units.
Here also, the units are sounds, letters, words, sentences, etc. Actually, all patterns of
human behaviour fit in these two relationships. For example, the various activities in the
kitchen a housewife has to perform show paradigmatic choice. The way she performs

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them first to cut the vegetable, to make the initial arrangements, and then the later ones
shows the linear or syntagmatic chain. The diagrammatical representation would be:

Paradigmatic
Syntagmatic
Vertical or Choice
Relationship. (Here,
selection is all
important.)

Horizontal or Chain
Relationship. (Here,
combination is all important.)

Similarly, the table exercises given to the students at the primary level is also the best
example of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationship.
Syntagmatic Relationship

a letter
Rajan

reads

sends
an essay

Paradigmatic Relationship

writes

The choice shows paradigmatic relationship and the number of sentences such as a. Rajan writes a letter.
b. Rajan reads a letter.
c. Rajan sends a letter.
etc., he/ she constructs show the syntagmatic relationship. According to Saussure, words
are not symbols but signs. They are made up of two parts: a mark, either written or
spoken. This mark is called a signifier and the concept or thought when the mark is
made, is called signified. For this Raman Selden has given the example of traffic lights:
signifier

SIGN =

signified
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red - amber - green

signifier (red)
signified (stop)
The sign signifies only within the system red=stop/green=go/amber=prepare for
red(stop)/ green(go). The relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary. Language,
according to Selden, is one among many sign-systems. The science of such signs is called
semiotics. So, structuralism and semiotics belong to the same theoretical universe.7
The structuralist approach to literature, Jonathan Culler opines, is not primarily
interpretative on the level of meaning. Its aim is to set conventions which can be
applied to the different genres of literature and, like the formalists and the new critics,
the structuralists, too, emphasize the close reading of the text.
Saussure, in his approach, has successfully tried to change our attitude to
language. In nutshell, his views can be put thus: (a) Language is a link between thought
and sound. Linguistics studies linguistic signs which have two sides: the signified and
the signifier. It is the systematic sets of signifiers and conventions in the language that
help literary texts to signify or to mean. Literary meaning, according to structuralist
approach, is structured only by paying attention to the principles of relations and
differences.8 In language, langue indicates the system while parole indicates the
performance. A linguist is interested in the synchronic as opposed to diachronic study of
language which deals with the analysis of the complex nature of language at a given
point of time.

Prose Passage
The teacher can ask the students to attempt an analysis and interpretation on the
basis of lexis, syntax, and devices like repetition and parallelism by giving them a piece
of a prose passage. The students will be the active participants in the whole process and
the method will be helpful to bridge the gap between active and passive vocabulary.

Passage
The car ploughed uphill through the long squalid strangle of Tevershall, the blackened brick
dwellings, the black slate roofs glistening their sharp edges, the mud black with coal-dust, the
pavement wet and black. It was as if dismalness had soaked through and through everything. The
utter negation of natural beauty, the utter negation of the gladness of life, the utter absence of the
instinct for shapely beauty which every bird and beast has, the utter death of the human intuitive

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faculty was appalling. The stacks of soap in the grocers shops, the rhubarb and lemons in the
greengrocers! The awful hats in the millioners! All went by ugly, ugly, followed by the plaster and
gilt horror of the cinema with its wet picture announcements, A Womans Love!, and the new big
primitive chapel, primitive enough in its stark brick and big panes of greenish and raspberry glass in
the windows. The Wesleyan Chapel, higher up, was of blackened brick and stood behind iron railings
and blackened shrubs. The Congregational chapel, which though itself superior, was built of
rusticated sandstone and had a steeple, but not a very high one. Just beyond were the new school
buildings, expensive pink brick and gravelled playground inside iron railings, all very imposing and
mixing the suggestion of a chapel and a prison. Standard Five girls were having a singing lesson, just
finishing the la-me-doh-la exercises and beginning a sweet childrens song. Anything more unlike
song, spontaneous song..., would be impossible to imagine; a strange bawling yell that followed the
outlines of a tune. It was not like savages: savages have subtle rhythms. It was not like animals :
animals mean something when they yell. It was like nothing on earth, and it was called singing.

The three-fold response to the passage will be as follows:

Lexis
The major lexical sets include words denoting:

Darkness: blackened brick dwellings, the black slate roofs, the mud black with
coal dust, the pavements wet and black, blackened shrubs.

Unpleasant: squalid, dismalness, utter negation, ugly, greenish and raspberry

glass, stark, rusticated.

Music and song: singing lesson, la-me-doh-la exercises, sweet childrens song,
spontaneous song, tune, subtle rhythms, and singing.

Pleasant: beauty, gladness, glistening.

Building and premises: straggle, dwellings, shops, chapel, school buildings,

playground, prison, and steeple.

Structure and construction: brick, roofs, coal-dust, pavements, panes,

windows, iron-railings, sand stone, and slate-roofs.

Rustic and countryside life: uphill, mud, brick-building, bird and beast,
primitive, shrubs, sand stone, animals, savages.

Adjectives: long, squalid, blackened, black, sharp, shapely wet, natural, human,
intuitive, awful, ugly, wet, new, primitive, stark, big, greenish, rusticated, high, sweet,
spontaneous, strange, subtle.
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Noun-modifiers and genitive nouns: brick dwelling, slate roofs, womans love,
school buildings, childrens song, iron railings.

Verbs used as adjectives: singing lesson, bawling yell, gravelled playground.

Nouns: car, dwellings, edges, mud, beauty, life, bird, beast, death, stacks, soap,
rhubarb, lemons, greengrocers, hats, etc.

Verbs of action: ploughed, soaked, built, finishing, beginning, imagine, yell.

Collocations: long squalid straggle, brick dwelling, black slate roofs, sharp
edges, human intuitive faculty, plaster and gilt horror, greenish and raspberry glass,
blackened shrubs, etc.

Words joined by and: wet and black, through and through, bird and beast,
rhubarb and lemons, stark brick and big panes, greenish and raspberry, a chapel and a
prison.
Lexical items give a clue to the central idea of the passage as well as to mental makeup of the writer. The main ideas referred to in the given passage, thus, are the pessimistic
feelings, created by the surrounding. The negative approach is conveyed through the
words showing unpleasant dwelling. It also seems that the author wants to throw light on
the drawbacks of rustic life. Even the song is also used to indicate pain or suffering.
Indirectly, the author exhibits the life of the birds, beasts, and savages is better than one,
depicted in the passage. Similarly, he/ she may be in favour of primitive life. Looking
from that way, it can be stated that the passage is a criticism on science or modern age.
Even the chapel and school building appear to the author a prison and the song of savages
or the yelling of the animal is better than the song of the schoolgirls. The author says,
animal means something when they yell. It was like nothing on earth, and it was called
singing. Here, he seems to suggest the meaninglessness, absurdity, disharmony of
human life.

Syntax
The passage deals with the theme of grief in human life. It is represented symbolically.
The idea is developed logically and gradually. The very first sentence of the passage
The car ploughed uphill through the long squalid strangle of Tevershall, the blackened
brick dwellings, the black slate roofs glistening their sharp edges, the mud black with
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coal-dust, the pavements wet and black, catches the readers attention and gives an idea
of the theme of the passage.
The sentences are impressive and grammatical. Basically, the writer has used
simple past tense for majority of the sentences in the passage but for one time, he/ she has
used past continuous: Standard Five girls were having a singing lesson. And for one,
simple present: animals mean something when they yell is used. Two types of
sentences are used in the passage: (a) assertive and (b) exclamatory. Similarly, simple as
well as complex sentences are also used. No contracted form is used anywhere in the
passage. The passage seems complete in itself. It throws light on the authors ability for
sound judgement.

Sense Devices
Personification
Human qualities are attributed to non-human objects. It is noticed in the very first
sentence of the passage: The car ploughed uphill through the long squalid straggle of
Tevershall. It is also observed in the sentence: It was as if dismalness had soaked
through and through everything.
Ambiguity
The passage consists of some sentences having multiple meanings.
Example I
... sweet childrens song.
The sentence is ambiguous due to its structure. It means :(a) a sweet song of children,
and (b) a song of sweet children.
Example II
Standard Five girls:
Here the words Standard and Five create ambiguity. The possible meanings of the
phrase are:
(a) Girls of the fifth standard (in the sense of the fifth class.)
(b) Five girls who are standard (in the sense of both number and quality.)
(c) Standard girls of the fifth class (relates to their education and quality.)
Example III
Just beyond were the new school buildings...
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Multiple meanings reside in the word new. The sentence conveys two senses:
(a) Just beyond were the school buildings which were new (new modifies buildings.)
(b) Just beyond were the buildings of the school which was new (new modifies school.)
Example IV
A womans love
A womans love - womans modifies love. (The woman is the lover.)
A womans love love is the object of womans. (The woman is the loved one.)
Paradox / Anti-thesis
In the sentence black slate roofs glistening their sharp edges... opposite words are
put together to heighten the effect of the subject by contrast.

Parallelism
The similar structure of the sentence is noticed in
The utter negation of natural beauty
The utter negation of the gladness of life
The utter absence of the instinct for shapely beauty
The utter death of the human intuitive faculty.
Repetition
See the repetition of the word black and ugly in the sentences:

The car ploughed uphill through the long squalid straggle of Tevershall, the
blackened brick dwellings, the black slate glistening their sharp edges, the mud
black with coal dust, the pavements wet and black.

... all went by ugly, ugly, ugly, followed by the plaster and gilt horror of the
cinema...
It emphasises the unpleasantness of the surrounding. Repetition is also noticed in the
concluding part of the passage.

It was not like savages: Savages have subtle rhythms. It was not like
animals: animals mean something when they yell. It was like nothing on earth and it
was called singing.
Generally, music or song is considered to be the source of joy in human life. The
sweet song of the girls appears to the author like a strange bawling yell.... The song of
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the savages and the yelling of the animals are better than this as they have subtle rhythm
and meaning, respectively. So, this song of the girls also increases the intensity of the
unpleasantness of the surrounding.
Thus, the lexis, the syntax, and the sense devices in the passage enable the students to
guess the central idea. Similarly, it is quite easy to analyse any literary work in the above
indicated manner. The students can interpret the diction, the syntax, and the stylistic
features and relate the analysis to the thematic structure of a given work. As the students
are the active participants, this experimental (rather empirical) method bridges the gulf
between the active and the passive learning.
So, to sum up the discussion, one can infer that the major problem in the teaching of
literature is to know how far the student can go on with the independent appreciation of a
poem/ a passage without any readymade critical judgments. In an effort to help the
students appreciate a literary work on their own, Widdowson suggests asking some
questions. The teacher can ask the questions based on the lexis, syntax, and other
linguistic devices. The easiest way to introduce the stylistic approach for the study of
literature in general and poetry in particular is through a resort to foregrounding.
REFERENCES
1. Structuralist Poetics, 1975, 257.
2. Quoted in Barthes, Roland. The Death of the Author. Image, Music, Text (translation).
Stephen Heath. London: Fontana, 1977. Quoted in Abrams M.H. A Glossary of Literary
Terms. VI edition. Bangalore: Prism, 1993, 281.
3. Das, B.K. Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. V edition. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2005,
34.
4. Selden, Raman, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker. A Readers Guide to
Contemporary Literary Theory. V edition. New Delhi: Pearson Longman, 2005, 62.Culler,
Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature.
London: Routledge, 1975, 63.
5. Sastri, M.I. Linguistics and Literature. Stylistics. Hyderabad: CIEFL, 2002. 13.
6. Malshe, Milind and Ashok Joshi. Adhunik Samiksha Siddhant. Mumbai: Mumbai
University and Mauj, 2007, 97. The extract is translated into English by the research
worker herself.
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7. Selden. op. cit., 64.

8. Krishnaswami, N., John Varghese, Sunita Mishra. Contemporary Literary Theory: A
Students Companion. Mumbai: Macmillan, 2001, 8.
Dr. Shailaja B. Wadikar
School of Lang., Lit. &Cul. Studies
S. R. T. Marathwada University,
Nanded

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