Theory of English Literature

Structuralist Criticism
Vema N. Riady

120810020

Structuralist criticism, or also called structuralism, is a term that headings

broad subjects. It can be applied on so many subjects such as linguistics,

cultural studies, anthropology, and of course, literature. This summary talks

about structuralist criticism and how we can apply it on analyzing literary

works.

To begin with, we’ll see what the scholars do with the word ‘structure’ as the

base of the term ‘structuralism’. The structuralists don’t try to find out the

shape or the structure of an object, otherwise they try to find the structure

or the system that takes role on the object. They’re not interested in

evaluating a single object, but they are interested in evaluating sum of

objects with similarities and find out the pattern. Then, from the pattern

they’ll able to imply what is the underlying structure.

Based on Tyson (198) ,“there are two fundamental levels in structuralism;

the visible and the invisible … the visible is usually called as the surface

phenomena” which are the things we can experience by our senses and we

interact with it every day, for instance the soil, the plants, the languages,

the words and so on. Of all the things exist in this world; there are small

structures that underlie them. The plant can grow if it’s put on a soil and the
plant will keep alive if we water it. We know how to plant something because

we know the structure of planting. It means that if we only know the

information without being able to organize and understand it, the

information will be useless and has no meaning. The process or organizing

and understanding are that next we called as structuring, a process which

makes us being able to differentiate the objects and classify it into clusters,

for instance the groups of healthy food, the groups of high fat food and the

groups of low fat food.

Consequently, we can assume that the structure is based on our ability in

structuring the information. The order of this world is the order we impose it

(Tyson 199), or in the other words, the world is being like this because that

is how we perceive it.

The structuralist defines structure as a theoretical system that has the

following three elements: 1) wholeness, 2) transformation and 3) self-

regulation. Wholeness means that the system works as a unified object, not

as separated object. It consists of different parts with definite tasks and

builds a working system. Secondly, transformation means that a structure is

dynamic which means it’s able to change and a new material always being

structured by the system (Tyson 200). The last element is self-regulation; as

a working system, a structure always obeys its law and regulation. Though

it’s capable to change, the changes never leave the track because the

changes also belong to the system.

As I mentioned above, structuralism can apply to so many subjects such as

linguistics, anthropology and so on. Structural linguistics was developed by

Ferdinand de Saussure. He called the structure of language as langue and

speech as parole. He also suggested the idea of binary oppositions, which

stated that we perceive one thing as the opposite of another, for example,

we can understand ‘beautiful’ because we are able to understand what is

‘ugly’. Furthermore, Saussure also argued the concept of signifier +

signified. Signifier is a ‘sound image’ or a mental imprint of linguistic sound

and signified is the concept to which signifier refers (Tyson 202).

Structural anthropology was developed by Levi-Strauss. He argued that all

cultures in the world have the same underlying structure and the differences

only seen in the surface phenomena. For instance, even though every

culture has different wedding ceremony, wherever it is held the aim of the

ceremony is still the same.

Next, structuralism steps to semiotics.