Structuralism

     Structuralism and Literary Criticism
                                   

Thinking Activity 

      Being a structuralist critic how would you analyse literary text or TV Serial or film? You can select any image or TV serial 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. 

                                       

           What is Structuralism? 

            The basic meaning of Structuralism is a systematic study of language. In this term we can study language  from various angle. 'Structuralism' movement first time seen in the work of the anthropologist Claude Levi - Strauss. 

        The meaning of the word can be studied from various contexts and which context is appropriate with the situations. What we can interpret more about the word that is called the Structural study of the literary works. 

               Or we can say Freedom of reading that is also called Structuralism, for that we can study hermeneutic. 

                 For example Literary critic applies the structuralist literary theory and says that they not write new, their work have same structures as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Boy and girl falls in love despite the fact that they belong to two groups that hate each other.

                 But the versatility of structuralism is that a literary critic make two friendly families that arrange a marriage between their children, despite the children hate each other. Children commit suicide to escape. 

         For the understanding we can use three terms given by Saussure. 

                                       

     1- Langage( Language)  : The entire human potential for speech .

        2- Langue : The system that each of us uses to generate discourse that is intelligible to others .

          3- Parole : Our individual utterance. 

                                        

        Saussure also gives the linguistic structure :

      Arbitrary : The meaning we gave to                                    words .

    Relational : Meaning of the words can be                          relational .

    Constructs : Language constructs our                                   world. 

  There is also another style of  studying language .

   Diachronic = Historical way of looking.                                towards the words. 

   Synchronic = At a particular                                                  momentation. 

                         Gerard Genette

                                          

     According to him one discipline help to understand other discipline. And that he calls "Intellectual bricolage ".

      Genette observes relationship between Structuralism and Hermeneutics also. 

     Genette gives the concepts of Narratology.

   Order - Everything happens in order 

   Frequency - An event becomes once.                                    (singular) 

                     - An event happens so many.                            times but narrated once.                                       (Narrative) 

                  - An event becomes one time and                       narrates more times .                                            (Repetitive) 

    Duration - A lengthy discourse time but a                       short narrative time. 

        Voice - Who narrates and from where. 

                    -Intra-diegetic : Inside the text 

                    - Extra - diegetic : Outside the                                                             text .

                    - Hetero - diegetic : Narrator is.                                 not a character in the story. 

                     - Homo - diegetic : Narrator is a                                         character in the story. 

     Roland Barthes also apply this term from the stand point of Cultural anthropologist. For that he gives the example of Boxing and wrestling. 

                   Boxing = Social endurance 

                                           

Wrestling = Struggle between good and evil

      Roland Barthes apply this term in his essay S/Z , History of Sarrasine written by Balzac. 

   Let's discuss the poems through sign, signifier and signified .

Ice and Fire - Edmund Spenser 

    This poem is about poet's love for his beloved. He expresses his love. He himself becomes like Fire and her beloved becomes like  Ice. 

                                       

                                 

        But the paradox is, if fire goes near to the ice than ice should be melt and the heat should be decrease, but that's not happening but both grows on it's own way. 

                   Fire and Ice - Robert Frost 

                                        

        In this poem poet says that the world must end in Fire and also in Ice. But the fire represents  the desire, hate ,emotion.

                                       

   Same way Ice also have same power of destruction. Both are different but both have power of destruction. 

        Fire and Ice are also the signifier of  the relation between India and Pakistan. Mainly in Jammu Kashmir. Where we find Ice but full of fire. 

     Here I am discussing the advertisement which represents Sign,Signifier, and Signified. 

                                     

                                       In this advertisement we find that the situation is of something is going wrong, Something sorrowful.Man and women are gathered at the place. There's clothes of women which gives the some kind of signs, which is in a way fitted in our mind by convention. The sign of put out of lamp, which represents somebody will die. Suddenly women comes near the wife of a man who is ill and tries to remove the 'sindur' and break the Bengals of her. From this all sign are signifier of so many things. Also they tries to remove the 'Bindi 'of that woman, but they can't. Which again gives so many signs. And suddenly the husband of that woman wakes. 

          But in the and of the advertisement we find that this advertisement is about A Marker. Which has good quality of permanence. 

            But we get arbitrary, convention, relational meaning by pre assuming. 

                                                 Thank-you..... 

                                  

            

             

Archetype of Literature - Northrop Frye

           
                                       

                 
1- What is Archetypal Criticism? What does the archetypal critic do? 

    Archetypal criticism is a type of critical theory that interprets a text by concentrating on recurring archetypes and myths and archetypes in the narrative, symbols, images and character types in literary word. Themes which are identified in a wide variety of works of literature. Dreams, social rituals also comes in this term.                                 

                                         

                                   

      Archetypal critic identifies the mental patterns of myth and rituals, Carl. G. Jung. (1875-1961) who applied the term "archetype" to what he called " Primordial images " .

2- What is Frye trying to prove by giving an analogy of physics to nature and criticism to literature? 

       

    Whatever we study is all about nature. For example physics, chemistry, biology, criticism and other subjects also. Frye says that physics is an organized body of knowledge about nature. But students says that they are learning physics not nature. We knows that in physics the learning is about nature. 

                                     

     In literature the same thing happens. All art is the study of Nature and criticism is the study of arts. So he says that one can not teach learn literature, but yes one can learn how to criticize. We says that "I feel cold " but in literary  sense. 

3- Share your views of criticism as an organized body of knowledge. Mention relation of literature with history and philosophy. 

    

    In criticism we find all the basics rules with organization. In proper way. In the journals and scholarly monographs has every characteristic of a science. 

                                      

     In this term everything examined by test, proof and evidence is also examined scientifically, field are investigated scientifically, texts are edited scientifically. So we can say whole works happened in pattern. Thus, we can conclude that criticism as an organized body of knowledge. 

                                       

      We knows that literature is all about a specific phenomenon, or events, or ideas. We can not study the literary genre without the help of the literature. So students must have history of the literature and philosopher for ideas. This both things are necessary for literature. 

4- Briefly explain inductive method with illustrations of Shakespeare 's Hamlet 's Grave Digger 's scene. 

      In the play  " Hamlet " we find inductive method during grave digging scene. In this method the process goes with specific to general. 

                                        

      For instance, is an intricate verbal texture ranging from the puns of the first clown to the danse ma cabre of the Yorick 's soliloquy, one thing is about corruption and decay. We find hero 's Liebestod and first unequivocal declaration of love. So by backing up we find more information about that. 

                                      

5- Briefly explain deductive method with reference to an analogy of Music, Painting, rhythm and pattern. Give examples of the outcome of deductive method. 

    In this method process goes with general to specific. 

                                       

     Some arts move in time, like music, others are presented in space, like painting. The score of a musical composition may be studied all at once, a picture may be seen as the track of an intricate dance of the eye. Literature seems to be intermediate between music and painting. We hear to a narrative but when we grasp a writer's total pattern we "see " what he means. 

6- Refer to the Indian seasonal grid (below). If you can please read small Gujarati or Hindi or English poem from the archetypal approach and apply Indian seasonal grid in the interpretation. 

                                      

Autumn: the year breathes dully towards its death,
beside its dying sacrificial fire;
the dim world’s middle-age of vain desire
is strangely troubled, waiting for the breath
that speaks the winter’s welcome malison
to fix it in the unremembering sleep:
the silent woods brood o’er an anxious deep,
and in the faded sorrow of the sun,
I see my dreams’ dead colours, one by one,
forth-conjur’d from their smouldering palaces,
fade slowly with the sigh of the passing year.
They wander not nor wring their hands nor weep,
discrown’d belated dreams! but in the drear
and lingering world we sit among the trees
and bow our heads as they, with frozen mouth,
looking, in ashen reverie, towards the clear
sad splendour of the winter of the far south.

                                                   

                              Thank you..... 

"Wait for Godot "

     Here I am discussing the term ' Wait for Godot '.
                                       

     I often read #cricbuzz commentary. And also I watch cricket but prefer to listen commentary in English. Simply watching cricket is not at all good. But by watching or listening we can improve our English. So we can connect this things with education, and it helps a lot. 

               By reading cricbuzz commentary I found the words "Wait for Godot ". That's an interesting word. But we might feel how this word used in game which has not relevance with it. But I remember that one day I just  attended the presentation of the  M. A.  ENGLISH SEM-3 class, and there I heard about  this word "Waiting for Godot". And that is in the syllabus of that class . And it is a play by Samuel Backet, In which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait for the ' arrival of someone ' named Godot who never comes. 

                                        

               Same way here cricbuzz connected this term with the Ranji Player named Amol Muzumdar. Who holds highest-ever score by a player on his first class debut. He also held the record of most runs in the Indian First Class Cricket ,which was later broken by Wasim Jaffer. 

                                        

         So we find how he criticise the things.

So this concept of Waiting for Godot -Waiting for Chance, which never came. Thus we can learn through minute reading. 

                                        

                                        

  Difference between Subcontinent pictures and Overseas pictures :

          

                  Indian Cricket ground 

                                      

Overseas ground 

    The another information I got through the  watching cricket is about the difference between clearity of pictures .While watching TV, the scene which are of Overseas :we find that the quality of pictures remains luminous, clear ,love to see . And if we talk about subcontinent (mainly Indian) condition there are not clear picture, there are daze seen in the picture .Sky remains blue in the overseas condition while in India the sky remains little bit yellowish. 

         Reasons : 

   

       # Because of the climate .

       # More Industries. 

       # Pollution of the Air .

       # Smoke .

     # Hot weather in India - Hot stream or steady wind keeps these particles afloat .

      While in overseas the Air pollution is almost less, cool condition, Greenness and etc. 

                                               Thank you... 

             

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

                     

  #  "Austen has represented the society in which she lived " Explain with special reference to Sense and Sensibility. 

                          Introduction :

                                        

Works : 

Sense and Sensibility :

       A novel written by Jane Austen. Probably written in 1795 as an epistolary novel entitled "Elinor and Marianne ". Published in 1811. The story is about Dashwood Sisters, Elinor and Marianne. And about domestic life. 

                                         

Characters of the Novel :

Representation of Society in which she lived :

      - Austen write this novel around the turn of the 18th century on the cusp between two cultural movements : Classicism and Romanticism . 

                                        

     -  Austen had lived in towns like Bath and Southampton and had visited London. But yet she describes the pastoral background in the novel. 

   - Affection for Country house ,or for native land , like Norland Park, Barton Park, Cleveland. 

                  When they depart from -

          Marianne : ' dear, dear Norland '.

                                       

          

        -  Characters lead a life of leisure. Much time is spent in gossip, chatter and the reading of poetry and romances. 

     -   The concept of upper class and middle class. Everyone wants to maintain economic security. 

                                       

       -  English laws of primogeniture, the first - born son inherits the family estate. But money is bequeathed directly to the rest of the family. If son is not old enough than estate is left to the mother. 

                  

          - Concept of joint Family .

                                         

                                       

          - Literature used as an instrument of reforms. 

                                          

       - Marriage Market . Women and Mens are married for money rather than for love. Women could not own property or hold a job, other wise they lose their social status. 

        

        - Marianne : ' Mamma, the more I knew of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much. '

      - A man of that time period could simply accuse her of adultery to get divorce. 

                                        

                                         

- Explosion of Arts. Intense language, abstract ideas, music, colourful imagery. 

Conclusion :

           In short we can say that Austen lived in age where we can find :

               - A world ruled by Men 

               - Female Suffers 

               - Men are cold, selfish, dishonest 

               - Economy and Products 

               - A female who has property they remains in the center. 

               - A society dominated by greed 

               

                                      

                               Thanks......