Structuralism (2)

1. Structuralism (2) De Saussure Q & A Structuralist Anthropology: Levi Strauss & “The Lesson” Structuralist Narratology: V. Propp & “The Lesson” A. J. Greimas& “The Lesson” Readings for next week

2. Q & A (1): Language and Reality Does it make a difference to call your mother’s sister 姨媽, aunt or Jenny? If we do not have the word, 緣, will we feel that meeting someone is a matter of fortunate pre-destination? Is there any eternal, unchanging essence of “mother” or “maternal love”? Can we define them without using language (as a system of relations and difference)?

3. Q & A (2): de Saussure’s Major ideas? 1. The synchronic vs. the diachronic; langue vs. parole 2.Language is a system of difference.Meaning occurs in binary opposition between two signs. (e.g. toy, boy) 3.sign = signifier and signified; the connection between them is arbitrary.

4. Q & A (2): about de Saussure Q: Anyway, maybe I am kind of confused, but somehow I just feel he simply tries to reverse the places of “reason"(creation of words) and “results“ (things represented by words) through making up so many linguistics elements, such as phoneme, morpheme, syntax, semiology, parole and something like that. My brain is really full now with all these abstract ideas. A: What’s reversed is the meaning-language binary. Language produces meanings (or we produces meanings through language); we don’t just use language to reflect our ideas. The above terms can be an example of this idea.

5. Q & A (3): Form and Structure? Form is inseparable from meaning; (composed of all the literary elements in a text) Structure is what makes meaning possible. (e.g. [b] vs. [p]; subj+predicate; cooked vs. raw, etc.)

6. Claude Levi-Strauss 1. Studies culture as a sign system; e.g. eating customs, taboos related to menstruation, initiation rites, kinship relations. (e.g. ring in Chinese society; 戒指) 2. Kinship system: structures how things or people are “exchanged” within a culture. e.g. women in exchange for dowry. 3. We think in terms of binaries. (e.g. raw vs. cooked; good vs. bad) 4. Myth: basic units – mythemes, e.g. in Oedipus myth: overrelating and underrating of blood relations

7. Claude Levi-Strauss on Oedipus the King overrelating of blood relations: Oedipus marries his mother; Antigone buries her brother, despite prohibition; underrating of blood relations: Oedipus kills his father, Laios; The heroic: Oedipus kills the Sphinx The supernatural/pre-destined: Oedipus=swollen foot; prophecy “Mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution.” (Structural Anthropology 224)

8. Levi Strauss: examples (2) “The Lesson” preliminary understanding: -- setting: a ghetto in NY and FAO Schwartz; -- social background: children with Aunt Gretchen, but not with their mothers; some richer, some homeless. -- narrator: Sylvia -- plot (beginning-middle-end)

9. Levi Strauss: examples (2) “The Lesson” initiation story: (e.g. “Araby”; “A&P”) a child playing in a group  rites of passage –price check at F.A.O. Schwarzlearning something; separated from the others;  between self-indulgence and self-improvement

10. Levi Strauss: examples (2) “The Lesson” binary opposition: between the poor and the rich; between the non-educated and the educated

11. View of the Kingsborough Houses, Brooklyn, 1989.(image source) Woman addict entering an abandoned building on Vyse Avenue, South Bronx, 1989, to go to a crackhouse in the basement. Brooklyn and Bronx in NY

12. F.A.O. Schwarz

13. The uneducated & the educated:Sylvia & Ms. Moore Sylvia’s language: Colloquial Black English (Ebonics); Syntax: Run-on e.g. “Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and Sugar were the only ones just right, this lady moved on our block with nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup.” Pronunciation, slang and dirty language: “[Aunt Gretchen] been screwed into the go-along for so long, it's a blood-deep natural thing with her.” “it's puredee hot and she's knockin herself out about arithmetic” (2nd par) “And the starch in my pinafore scratching the shit outta me” learn (unwillingly) from Ms. Moore: “. . .being surly, which is a Miss Moore word”

14. The narrator  Ms. Moore  laughs at her as she does “at the junk man who went about his business like he was some big-time president and his sorry-ass horse his secretary;  hates her as much as the "winos who pissed on our handball walls and stand up on our hallways and stairs so you couldn’t halfway play hide-and-seek.";  Not related in blood;  Hates her “goddamn college degree”; dislikes her plans; "boring-ass things for us to do" (1st par; 872-73).

15. The narrator  the other kids 1. Bonds with Sugar; 2. Knows what Ms. Moore will teach (p. 873 “And Miss Moore files that remark away for next week's lesson on brotherhood, I can tell.” 3. Wants to refute her (about slums). 4. Wants to escape and use the money elsewhere.

16. Levi Strauss: examples (2) “The Lesson” money as a sign whose meaning determined by what it is associated with: e.g.1) 35 dollars = clown toy  the rich 35 dollars = having a bed and being with one’s family  lower class, 2) money: $300 (microscope)  $480 (paperweight)  $ 1195 (sailboat). 5-cent sailboat 3) haves and have-nots: no desk (Junebug), no homework (Big Butt), no home(Flyboy)

17. Structuralist narratology: Vladimir Propp syntax as the basic model: Subject + predicate = Actor + function Propp: 7 actors, or "spheres of action" (villain, hero, false hero, donor[provider], helper, dispatcher, princess [and her father]) and 31 functions. * Actors are not characters; they are narrative functions, or types of actions of the characters. One character can be different “actors” at different moments. (e.g. Cinderella & Snow White, The Long Enchantment.)

18. Propp: examples (1) James Bond’s 007 films: actor: female helpers (usu. appearing in double, one from the enemy’s side and one as Bond’s comrade); 1 major function: sex (which usu. the films begin and end).

19. Propp: examples (2): Characters  Actors no princess [and her father] or Donor; Who is the dispatcher? Who the helper? Who’s the hero? False hero? Opponent?

20. Propp: examples (2): Characters  Actors Food: Flyboy -- checking out what everybody brought for lunch. Junebug -- punchin on Q.T.'s arm for potato chips. Fat Butt -- was already wasting his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich like the pig he is" Attention: Rosie Giraffe -- shifting from one hip to the other waiting for somebody to step on her foot or ask her if she from Georgia . . . (p. 873)

21. Characters (2): funs Sylvia: rather go to the pool or to the show where it's cool; terrorize the West Indian kids and take their hair ribbons and their money too. In the taxi: [Flyboy and June Bugg] are fascinated with the meter ticking and Junebug starts laying bets as to how much it'll read . . .  None of them receives Ms. Moore’s message at this point.

22. Characters (2)  F. A. O. “Can we steal?" Sugar; Want to buy “that there.” Big Butt Mercedes says, . . . I have a box of stationary on my desk and a picture of my cat, My godmother bought the stationary and desk. There's a big rose on each sheet and the envelopes smell like roses." Rosie Giraffe says that "white folks" are crazy in the way they spend money "I'd like a shower. Tiring day," say Flyboy.

23. Sugar & the narrator  sailboat Sugar: criticizes democracy Sylvia: "Unbelievable," I hear myself say and am really stunned. . . . "My sailboat cost me about fifty cents." • Wants to know how much a real boat costs. Going in, she “feel funny, shame.”  "Watcha bring us here for, Miss Moore?" (anger) • “What kinda work they do and how they live and how come we ain't in on it?”  “But ain't nobody gonna beat me at nuthin.” Is Sugar the false hero and Sylvia the hero?

24. Propp: examples (2) “The Lesson” Hero: Sylvia; Opponent: themselves, in their refusal to learn False Hero: Sugar Helper – the toy store?

25. Propp's seven 'spheres of action‘ Greimas’s three pairs of binary oppositions including: six roles (actants) 1. Subject/Object, 2. Sender/ Receiver 3. Helper/Opponent- Propp & Greimas and three basic patterns: 1. Wanting (Desire, search, or aim), 2. Exchange (communication) 3. Contradiction (Auxiliary support or hindrance).

26. Propp's 31 functions  further abstracted into Greimas’s 3 structures; for example: Propp: “One member of a family either lacks something or desires to have something.” Propp & Greimas (2) Disequilibrium, contract broken, disjunction

27. A. J. Greimas’s universal grammar three pairs of actants: Helper/Opponent, Sender/Reciever, Subject/Object three basic patterns of action: contractive (breaking/setting contract, alienation, reintegration ), disjunctive (departure, arrival), and performative (trial, task).  deep semantic structure of human thinking and narrative.

28. "the semiotic rectangle” elementary structure of signification a binary opposition & their negation A - A (e.g. marriage/normal) (e.g. incest/abnormal) -A1 A1 (e.g. male adultery/non -abnormal) (female adultery /non-normal ) contradiction Simple negation

29. "the semiotic rectangle” & the neutral term Setting the semiotic rectangle in motion: A - A (e.g. marriage/normal) (e.g. incest/abnormal) -A1 A1 (e.g. male adultery/non -abnormal) (female adultery /non-normal ) Complicated by Platonic love Neutralized by divorce

30. Greimas Example: “The Lesson” The only right one, hates her college degree. Rich lower class Self-Presumption Steal; cheat and pretend

31. Greimas Example: “The Lesson”

32. born in New York City and raised in the City’s Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant sections. A writer of essay, film scripts and novel, a civil rights activist. As a writer, she works to "lift up a few useable truths " in a "racist, hardheaded, heedless society." But she also says that writing is a way for her to "hear myself, check myself," a discipline that makes her more honest and clear-headed. (source) Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) Image source

33. Reading for next week 1. Textbook -- Structuralism: Levi-Strauss & Vladimir Propp; 2. Textbook pp. 40- 41; Propp and Greimas 3. "The Purloined Letter“ 4. Lecture video: Theory 2 (review)+ Practice 2 (preview) * Start to read M. Butterfly.