Post Structuralism--Criticism & Theory

Post Structuralism

From a PowerPoint presentation—Dr. S. Sreekumar

Let us begin with a brief overall view of 20^th century Literary Criticism.

A brief history of 20^th century criticism

Year	Trends
1920s & 30s	Russian Formalism
1930s & 40s	Archetypal Criticism
1940s & 50s	New Criticism, Phenomenology & Stylistics
1960s	Structuralism, Feminism
1970s	Post Structuralism   [postmodernism]
1980s	Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Dialogic criticism, New Historicism, Postcolonialism, Gender studies, queer studies, Cultural studies.
1990s	Life Writing—Ecocriticism--Utopian Studies--Trauma Studies, Future Studies
2000 onwards	Cyberspace Textuality, Computer Technology and Literary Theory

The above table is based on A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams ( a basic text for beginners). Here we can see that trends change almost every decade so much so that Literary Criticism can be labeled as the most perishable commodity in the field of literary studies. The students of Literature can guess to some extent the difficulties of undertaking a study of literary theory. However, without adequate knowledge of literary theory, no student can progress much. Hence literary theory may be considered a necessary evil by all students aspiring to get across hurdles like NET/ SET / Research Fellowship etc.

Post structuralism & postmodernism

Though often used interchangeably with post-structuralism, postmodernism is a much broader term and encompasses theories of art, literature, culture, architecture, and so forth. Some theorists assert that post structuralism comes under postmodernism. Both reject the anti humanist, totalizing narrative of the modernists.

Post Structuralism is consequent on and is a reaction to structuralism—it would not exist without structuralism.

What is structuralism

Structuralism is an intellectual movement which began in France in the 1950s—seen in the works of Claude Levi –Strauss, the anthropologist and Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980).  

Structuralism—certain basic principles:

1. All elements of human culture (including literature) are parts of a system of signs

2. Behind the innumerable sentences in a language there is a system.

3. Structures are transformable.

4. They are principles which are conventions and shared notions.

5. All the different structures form a totality which is called the system.

6. The system and the structure are not manifest and visible.

7. Those who are only within the system can understand it.

Structuralism was heavily influenced by linguistics especially by the pioneering work of Ferdinand de Saussure—

Ferdinand de Saussure—Course de linguistique Generale.

Saussure introduced certain ideas and terms into the study of Linguistics which have a lasting influence in the discipline. Here we look at some terms and ideas introduced by Saussure.

Terms—

Langue, Parole, Difference, Sign, Signifier, Signified (these terms are further explained in the next post)

Langue—Looks at language as an abstract system used by a speech community. It does not bother about individual speech differences. For example the English language is seen as a system. Its different variants or utterances of individual speakers are not taken into account.

Parole—refers to the actual linguistic behavior or performance of individuals. While langue is abstract, parole is concrete.

Sign, signifier, signified—Saussure believed that a sign is made up of two sides—signifier and signified. Signifier is the word, the sound image. Signified is the concept, the meaning, the thing indicated by the signifier. Saussure said that the relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.  A sign needs both signifier and signified. A signifier without signified is noise. A signified without signifier is impossible.

Ideas—

In language there are only differences without positive terms—binary oppositions. We understand one concept because it is different from the other.

Till the time of Saussure, language was studied diachronically. Saussure thought that synchronic study of language is more important than the diachronic. (The terms ‘synchronic and diachronic are further explained in the next post).

Diachronic—considers the development and evolution of language through history. Historical linguistics is a typically diachronic study. Synchronic—considers a language without taking its history into account. Describes the rules of language at a specific point of time. For example, the word ‘man’ can be studied diachronically,  studied with reference to historical /etymological antecedents—‘mann’ (OE), plural ‘menn’—inflections for number, gender, and case—other forms are ‘mannes’ ,’mannum’, ‘manna’. The term can be studied synchronically.

The relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. There is no natural relation between the word and the concept.—literature is a verbal construct with no relationship to reality—mimetic theories undermined. Structuralism views literature as a totality. The structuralist critic overlooks biographical evidence.  Sociological factors are considered extra literary. For example, a structuralist would consider Yeats’s relationship with Maud Gonne as immaterial for the appreciation of his works, thus separating the poet from the man. As Barthes adds in “The Death of the Author”:  “As an institution the author is dead.”

Structuralism and literature.

Structuralist aspires for a system. In his Structuralist Poetics, Jonathan Culler asks: What makes a person claim that he has scored a goal in a football match? Kicking a ball through the space between two poles cannot be called a goal—certain conditions are necessary for that—other players, a referee, spectators etc. Similarly, a novel is also a system. Certain conditions are necessary for that—other novels, heroes and heroines, climatic scenes, readers who comprehend the situations etc.

Todorov’s essay ‘Typology of detective fiction’ gives an apt illustration. All detective fiction are based on one or two murders, in fact, the more the merrier. There will be at least two stories. The first is the story of the crime. The second is that of the investigation. The characters of the second story do not act; they learn. The rule of the genre postulates the detective’s immunity. The 150 odd pages which separate the crime from the revelation of the killer are devoted to slow apprenticeship—we examine clue after clue, lead after lead before coming to the conclusion. For example, Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Orient Express offers 12 suspects—12 chapters—12 interrogations—a prologue and an epilogue—a perfect geometric structure.

Post Structuralism

·        Is not a school, but a group of approaches motivated by certain common understanding.

·        It is not a theory, but a set of  positions.

·        Refers to the work of many distinct writers, whose works are not explicitly connected.

·        Usually refers to the work of philosophers like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Lacan, Helene Cixous.

·        If you want to reduce these works to a single term, it is ‘Difference’.

For example, even in writing the post structuralists find differences and complexities that mean texts do not say what they initially seem to say, what they want to say, or what we think they say. Similarly, in our own sense of ourselves, our identity or subjectivity, these thinkers find differences and divisions.

·        Post-structuralism is marked by the rejection of totalizing, essentialist, foundationalist concepts.

Totalizing puts all phenomena under one concept. (Will of God /Marxian world view/ Elizabethan World view etc.) Totalizing never bothers about the differences that may exist within a single concept. For example, Marxian world view is never a homogenous concept. Within it there are many differences. (Russian Marxism, Chinese Marxism, Cuban Marxism etc.)  Totalization tries to gloss over the inherent differences and project a homogenous entity. Essentialist concept suggests that there is a reality which exists independent of, beneath or beyond language and ideology (feminine, truth, beauty). In fact, such a reality is an illusion. Foundationalism—signifying systems are stable and unproblematic representations of a world of fact which is isomorphic with human thought.

Now let us look at the major differences between structuralism and post structuralism

Structuralism                Meaning is a matter of differences--binaries. We understand one word because it is different from other words. In language there are only differences. We understand ‘day’ because it is different from ‘night’. Similarly, we understand ‘boy’, because he is different from ‘girl’.

Post Structuralism        Ps believes that every sign in the language is made up of infinite number of differences.  We understand Cat because it is different from dog. It is also different from cap or bat. Not mere binary opposites but infinite number of opposites.

Structuralism                Language is a closed system.

Post structuralism         Language is an open system. It is a site for endless play. (‘Jouissance’ is the term used by Barthes to describe free play. This French term may be translated as ‘enjoyment’. But the French term has additional sexual connotations missing in the translation.)

Saussure believed that language is a closed system. Claude Levi Strauss understood during his study of myths that language is an open system. But he refused to take further steps in that direction. Post structuralists accuse the structuralists of refusing to take the matter to its logical conclusion. They say that language is not a closed system but an open one. It is a site for endless play of signifiers.

Structuralism                Believes in some center for language. This center stands outside the endless play of signifiers. It is not contaminated by it. But at the same time it is within the system. The structuralists always yearn for a centre—’the transcendental signifier’ (Terry Eagleton). Terry Eagleton says that they have a number of candidates for that role—God, the Idea, World Spirit, the self, substance, matter and so on.

Post structuralism         Derida questioned the assumptions of structuralists. He says that either the centre is within or outside. It cannot be in both places. If the centre is outside the system, then the centre is not the centre.  This activity of questioning the imaginary fulcrum of the language is called “decentering the center”.

Peter Barry uses an analogy to explain the consequences of this belief. He says that in space, “where there is no gravity, there is no up and down” and “these pronouncements about language send us into a gravity free universe, without upside down of right way up”.

Structuralism                Structuralists believe that the world we live is constructed by language. We can enter it only through language. We need language to live in it.

Post structuralism         There is no such world. Reality is only textual. “There is nothing outside the text”, says Derrida.

Structuralism                More scientific because it originates from Linguistics, which is a scientific study of language.

Post structuralism         Originates from philosophy which always underlines the difficulty of attaining absolute knowledge.

“Poststructuralism” in America was originally identified with a group of Yale academics, the Yale School of “Deconstruction:”-- Paul de Man, J. Hillis Miller and Geoffrey Hartmann were the leading lights of Deconstruction. Other tendencies that share some of the intellectual tendencies of “Post Structuralism” would include the “Reader response” theories of Stanley Fish, Jane Tompkins, and Wolfgang Iser.

The most revolutionary branch of post structuralism is DECONSTRUCTION. Let us look at some of the salient features of Deconstruction here. [The topic will be dealt with in detail elsewhere]

Deconstruction does not mean destruction. ‘It is in fact much closer to the word ‘analysis’, which etymologically means ‘to undo’. When a work is deconstructed the warring forces of signification within the text is brought out. Two opposing morphemes in Deconstruction –de= to undo, to destroy. Construct = to do, to build. Co-existence of constructive and destructive forces. “Deconstruction is not a tool or method you apply from outside to something, Deconstruction is something that happens, which happens inside.

New criticism is also close reading. But the aim here is to bring out the unity in the text. Close reading is a feature of Deconstruction also. But here the aim is to bring out the disunity in the text. Terry Eagleton calls this “reading against the grain”.

Procedure: - looks for binary opposites trying to overturn them. A line of argument or a word is sufficient to bring out the radical incongruities in the logic or rhetoric.  Take any binary opposition—there is hierarchy in it; find it. Critically examine it by putting one or both under erasure. A new tentative order will emerge, which has to be critically examined.

Dr. S. Sreekumar