Answer, theradically

Iis Rhe this for set structuralism. only vocabulary, Languages

and relationscould insights of would one 1963).Structural into
Levi-Strauss
Oedipal anthropologist Text:
analytical
satisfactorily
thanthe This and so
question, method, specific of going
vocabulary. Nikolai In anal
bet
o gi
w een
e s
relations of the
greatly be come
This analogical'logicof
from between treated of th e first 1955,
myth content with but mayTroubetzkoy, inaugural his Study
Levi-Strauss
then, volume
essay
simplified are it Understanding the From they friend to toLevi-Strauss
be
can contains what vary alike paradigm of logicof the
is: recurrent of
accepted have variety a knowntranstormed Myth, of 'explain
why be acan this widelylanguage, Roman works Structural ordering
is, found is myth in Levi-Strauss mythical
do between be point of as published modern
science.
that able common Jakobson, of - which the
acrossanthropological
that different
in structuralism. changing natureof
cultures in to empirically this
of terms i.e. th e its thought world
mythspractically as analytic author was Anthropology
show time myth is view, isthe
important, reasoneda as a and
the ofcomplex
types intellectual. latershort is thatandof
provide need thatelements, and fact wel l
shown, which basicgrammar from nomake
myths?every space. of of Utilizing method incorporated
as (Eng. essay, rigorousless lexts Or
versions practice grammarelements.system that the it
symboic culture. but itdepartspoint obscure liveable. s
Using which is myth work that It transl. "The
His the not and the was
of of of of
 Theory
102+ AHandbook of Critical

solutions to real problems; myths are culture's

resolving the contradictions inherent in a
taken over by
This thesis has been taken Fredric
analysis of contemporaryculture.
In 19%6, at the height of his fame, Jarmeson ini
structuralist project was subjected to a
Jacques Deida,leading
Levi-
devastatinggaSt atrcakusi,
leading to the displacement ofostructuralisr
by poststructuralism.

SummaryofTEXT
Levi-StrausS opens the esay with some remarks abor :A
somy state of anthropological studies in his day. the
anthropologists have withdrawn fromi the Professiom
finding the material far too complex and study of mythology,
is taken by amateurs from chaotic. Their place
other disciplines. These scholars
ignore the intellectual content of myths;
they offer unscientifc
explanation of the myths'
are collective dreams, the emotional content. Myths, they say,
or the basis of ritual. outcome of akind of aesthetic pla,
persorified abstractions,Mytdivinized
hological figures are considered as
heroes or fallen gods.
acentral problem
As soon as we
confronted attempt a serious study of
by a central
is a probl em. mnyth, we are
bewildering On
logic in them, novariety of myths. Therethe one hand, there
continuity. Anything
nyth. On the other seems to be i102
of hand, there is a can happen
structural elements
How explain this in myths remarkable
in
similarity
contradiction? throughout the world.
 Analytical Sunmaries of Major Texts 103

thelinguistitmodel
-Strauss borrows from linguistics a model for
Levi-
were
ercoming this contradiction. Ancient philosophers
ata.losstoexplain
the relation between asign (word) and its
noticed that there was a definite association
meaning. They soundssand aspecific meaning.
between acertain1sequence of
time,,thhis same sequenceeof sounds may possesS
Atthe same
entirely different meaning in another language. The
contradiction was resolved by the discovery that it is the
an

themselves, that
ombination of sounds, not the sounds
Saussure spoke of the
produced meaning. Hence it is that
arbitrary nature ofthe linguisticsign. mythology,
Applying this principle to the study of
one finds that Jung wasmistaken in his view that a given
-- possessed
mythological pattern - the so-called archetype
own.
a meaning of its contradiction Levi-Strauss
To resolve still another
between langue and Myth,
parole.
employs the distinction more
its specific character it is
he says, is language; yet, in the contradiction of sameness
than language.There is now language, too,
in-difference. But then, he observes that
contradictory character. Instances of parole
exhibits this
expressions of a structure (language) which is
aredifferent
Langue is reversible in time; parole is not.
the same.
more than language its levels of langueand
has
As akind of language, myth parole, derives
parole. The individual version of each myth, its
of its langue: SophoclesS$
Irom the fundamental structure langue of the total
Oedipus Rex derives, as parole, from the
 Handbook of CriticalTheory
104 A

Howeve, a third Jes

Oedipus myth.
myth
level is also
In its individual telling a is always
tells of events
hearingittold,
supposed
thereis
to
felt
have
to
taken
be a
Thus, cach time amyth is narrated.,it
located
place in
long ine
meaning
that 1s
daisgcoer.hitudet,i
of both langue and parole. In so doing,combigoesnesbeyondtimales
it
the
th
as an "cxplanation" of the world that is true for all ti
cultures. This shows in the peculiar power of the
dimesermentaa,nd
mth. The power of the onigna myn is never
way any particular version of it is narrated.
affected t
does not sufter by "translation".[The Unlike
Ttalian poet"trarduty tor1ryeth
tradittore" (translator is traitor) is least true in tag
o. the language used in
myth preSents us athis
of the existence of another
case.] And
with peculiar sen
meaningful level of
bevond, or perhaps behind, the purely
linguistic oper
one.
Moreover, myth's "meaning" need not always be a
a ation
mirror-image of its content (plot). lt can also appear :
transformation. appear as a
mytheme or gross constituent units
Based on his findings,
Levi-Strauss
two basic propositions about is able to formulate
the meaning and
myth: language ot
1. Theemeaning of
mythologythecann
clements which constitute cannot reside in the isolated
myth. but must inhere
the way these elements are combined. One must also
consider the potential for transformation that sucha
2.
combination allows.
Language in myth exhibits abovethe
ordinary linguistic level. specifhc properties,?
,
 Analytical Summaries of Major Texts 105

Fromthese,itffollows that myth, like the rest of flanguage,

issmade up of constituent units. These units, although
similar to the constituent units of language like phoneme,
morphemes etc. are yet different because they also "belone
to ahigher and more complex order". For this reason, they
can be called"gross constituent units "or'mythemes".
method of analysis
Structural analysis begins by breaking down a large
number of myths into the smallest possible units in the
unfolding of the story, Each unit will be asentence expressing
"relation'linking asubject with its function (e.g. "Oedipus
ills his father"). A bundle of such relations makes up the
gross constituent unit or mytheme. It is only as bundles
that these relations can be put to use and combined so
produce meaning, In short, ike the phoneme in language,
the 'bundle' is a set of items sharing the same functional
trait. The bundles (mythemes) together function like a
super-langue, above and behind the parole (the individual
teling of the myth) and the langue (the system from which
it derives).We feel that we are always in the presence of a
totally realizable potential; something that is more than a
story being told here and now. Amyth truly always consists
of all its versions".
It is the "super-langue' that carries the fundamental
message of the myth. Of course, the message is in "code",
and the "bundle" shows the code in operation.
A "bundle" can best be defined as all the versions of a
particular "relation' that have ever existed. This "relation is
Sensed beneath and through whichever version is being used
106 AHandbook of Critical Theory

atany particulartime.The "bundles" function

with all their variants present at the
3ke as it
argument, Levisame time,
Strauss prespehonetrsmes h
To illustrate his
controversial "decoding ot the Oedipus mvth were
Column 1 Column 2
Column 3
Cadmos secks
his sister Europa,
Column 4
ravished by Zeus

Cadmos kills the

dragon
The Spartoi kill
one another.
Oedipus kills his
father, Laios

Labdacos
father) =(Llame?
aios
Laios (Oedipus
father) left
sided?
Oedipus marries his
mother Jocasta Oedipus kills the
Sphinx
Etiocles kills his
Oedipus=
brother, Polynices Swollenfoot?
Antigone buries her
brother, Polynices,
despite prohibition
Allthe
one common relations belonging
to the same column exhibit
feature which the researcher must identity.
For
instance, all the events under column one sharethe
 Analytical Summaries of Major Texts 107

Common feature of 0verrating of blood relation; those in

column2 show the underrating of blood relation; those in
column3 dealI with the killing of monsters whooattempt to
prevent. man's birth; those in column 4deal with difficulties
straightwhich
which result from man's struggle to be
in walking
born.
It follows that column four is to column three as
alumn one is to column twO. The inability to connect fwO
inds of relationships is overcome (or, rather replaced) by
dhe assertion that contradictory relationships are identical
ossnuch as they are self-contradictory in asimilar way.
the meaning of the Oedipus myth
From his analysis of the Oedipus myth, Levi-Strauss
derives the following meaning. The myth deals with the
ifficulty of reconciling two understandings of the origin of
mankind. Ancient Greeks believed that humans sprang from
the earth as plants do (autochthonous). But experience shows
that humans are actually born from the union of man and
woman. The problem cannot be solved. The Oedipus myth
provides alogical tool which relates the original problem
- born from two - to the derivative problem: bom from
different or born from the same? By a correlation of this
type, the overrating of blood relations is to the underrating
of blood relations as the attempt to escape autochthony is
to the imposibility to succeed in it. Although experience
contradicts theory, social life validates cosmology by its
similarity of structure. Hence cosmology is true. According
to Levi-Strauss, "mythical thought always progresses trom
he awareness of oppositions toward their resolution".
 Theory
Critical
Handbookof
108" A
claim of Levi-Strauss
important
An eliminatesthe problematic quest for
was that
method his
myth.Hedefined
defined the myth as
versionofa
carier versions. Even Freud's account of
its
ofall of the mnyth. Even when
mythispart oflatter canthemselves be
the consi üng
variants OediFus
diferences,the
which correl ated, exhibit
thereis no single,
versionof
true
distortions. Every version
all the
otth Hesncaree
er
structure,belongs to the
but copies or
'slated'
myth. Amyth displays a which
coThe,
o thesurface through repetion. Myth grows spiral.
until the intellectual impulse behind it is exhausted. It
growth is a continuous process whereas its
remains discontinuous. Levi-Strauss saw his theo structure
generating a novel view of the progress of
logic in mythical Ithought is as rigorous as thatthought:
of
the
modernng
science; the difference or apparent improvement lies
in the progress s of man's mind but in the
areas to which it may apply. discovery of new
Criticsm of Levi-Straus'stheory
Levi-Strauss's theory owes a great deal to the dialectical
method of Hegel and Marx. In this
between two elements is resolved inmethod, opposition
a third term that
retains elements of each.
force evidence to
conform Levi-Strauss would sometimes
to this method. Some scholars
mignt preter a
In this view, themore evolutionary approach to
agaiwas nstmeant to aOedipus story could be seen asmythovs
violating newiy iinvented code of wa o
Thiscode
civility.confictand
thus ensure the prevent harmful violence and
survival of human populao