Literary Theory

Series 1: Handout #8

Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-): Belgian, a self-conscious anthropologist (wonders what is his actual role?), precursor to deconstructions such as Derrida and post-structuralists such as Foucault and Bourdieu; also relevant to myth and symbol school of criticism (consider in relation to Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, Joseph Campbell, Franz Boaz, and Mircea Eliade). Founding role in Cultural Theory as well as structuralism.

Culture: is a system of “symbolic communication.” Levi-Strauss argues that we need not limit analysis to language, a category of writing, or words at all. Everything is a “text” to be analyzed, and everything relates to everything else (built up on arbitrary signifiers).

Mythic Structures: myths are expressions of foundational cultural values. They tend to be similar all over the world, even among unrelated cultures (e.g., different names but same structure: the hero’s quest). The reason for this follows:

Binaries or Dyads: The Raw and the Cooked; opposites provide the basic structure for culture (e.g., raw=natural; cooked=cultural). The oppositions are the building blocks of myths and produce common mythic structures (good vs. evil). Dyads have no relation to nature—which is incremental rather than the oppositional—but they express the basic human desire to impose order and control.

Beyond the sign to “bundles of signs”: getting beyond “black and white” as signifiers to make intelligible an entire cultural discourse (“myths”) by isolating and organizing the smaller components (“mythemes”).

Some Big Ideas with Consequences for Literary Studies: Women are exchange objects in patriarchal societies; writing is a technology that supports oppression. Supposedly neutral observers such as anthropologists may function as tools of imperialism (anticipating question raised later by Derrida—how can the structuralist get outside the structure?

HERE’S A BLOCKBUSTER WE MIGHT CONSIDER:

“The only phenomenon with which writing has always been concomitant is the creation of cities and empires, that is, the integration of large numbers of individuals into a political system, and their grading into castes and classes . . . [writing] made it possible to assemble thousands of workers and force them to carry on exhausting tasks . . . My hypothesis, if correct, would oblige us to recognize the fact that the primary function of written communication is to facilitate slavery. The use of writing for disinterested purposes, and as a source of intellectual and aesthetic pleasure, is a secondary result, and more often than not it may even be turned into a means of strengthening, justifying, and concealing the other . . . the systematic development of compulsory education in the European countries goes hand in hand with the extension of military service and proletarianization. The fight against illiteracy is therefore connected with an increase in governmental authority over the citizens. Everyone must learn to read, so that government can say: Ignorance of the law is no excuse” (1423-1424).

If this is so—what does that tell us about the liberal humanists and the formalists? What about us in this class? Are we tools of the state power? Or are we the bringers of liberty? What are the symbolic rituals and mythic structures of literary culture in college English departments?

CAN WE APPLY LEVI-STRAUSS’ METHODS TO IMAGES, FILMS, ACTIONS NOW?