LÉVI-STRAUSS’S STRUCTURAL METHOD

While structuralism has different methods,²³ I will focus on Lévi-Strauss. This is because his approach, particularly as found in ‘The Structural Study of Myth’,²⁴ has influenced film studies.

According to Lévi-Strauss, the method of investigation of any cultural phenom-enon begins by the simultaneous delineation of its boundaries and the detection, mostly through statistical recurrence, of the discrete units constituting it. The outlining of the phenomenon’s boundaries is determined by its constituent units and vice versa.²⁵ As in Sassure’s study, the value or meaning of these constituent units

derives more from their mutual interrelations than from their relation to elements outside the phenomenon’s boundaries. This value or meaning can be decoded by the positioning of the constitutive units in binary oppositions to each other (i.e. each time two units are placed one against the other, allowing their mutual understanding by noting the similarities and differences between them).²⁶ The layout of relations between these constituent units unearths the deep structure of the studied phenomenon. That is, it unearths the structure that in turn determines the meaning of the constituent units. There is no use, according to Lévi-Strauss, in studying the connection between two constituent units pertaining to different deep structures just because there is a phenomenological or ‘natural’ relation between them, since each unit’s meaning derives from its interrelation with other units within the same structure. For example, in a structural study of kinship in a certain society it may turn out that the authority of the uncle on the mother’s side is higher than that of the father, whereas in a different society it is lower. However, this ‘natural’ based comparison would be useless since a structural study may reveal the uncle’s authority in society A to be closer to that of the grandmother in society B, whereas in society B his authority may turn out to be closer to that of the second son in society A.

In ‘The Structural Study of Myth’ Lévi-Strauss applied this approach to the study of the different versions pertaining to the same myth. He likened previous attempts to interpret myths as representing events in society or general emotions to the futile attempts made by linguists before Saussure to find a relation between the sounding of a word and the object it references. Hence, if a myth figured an evil grandmother these researchers claimed that the society where such myth was told considered grandmothers to be evil. However, if grandmothers were not found to be evil in society then researchers claimed that the myth represented repressed feelings towards grandmothers. He claimed that, since myth is part of language in that it is a written or told story, the structural linguistic method developed by Saussure has to be applied: ‘everybody will agree that the Saussurean principle of the arbitrary character of linguistic signs was a prerequisite for the accession of linguistics to the scientific level.’²⁷ Hence, argued Lévi-Strauss, myth has to be considered as being constituted by discrete units. Its meaning does not stem from the natural or objective meaning of each or all units, but from the way these units are interrelated. Moreover, Lévi-Strauss tried to apply to the study of myth Saussure’s distinction between the synchronic aspects of language systems (whose components exist simultaneously in the language users’ minds and are not ordered in time sequences) and the use of the system as it is manifested in speech, a use which is always diachronic (i.e. always within an irreversible time sequence). Accordingly, he suggested the unearthing of a presumed deep synchronic structure in myths out of its manifestation in the many diachronic versions of mythical stories.²⁸ He argued that myths intimate this approach. Hence,

he noticed that mythical stories are characterized, on the one hand, by their telling a unique story belonging to a society’s past, while, on the other, it appears as though these stories can happen any time. Moreover, myths describe unique events that often appear without narrative, temporal, spatial or character motivation and yet there is a feeling that all myths are alike.

In order to instantiate his method Lévi-Strauss chose to study the different versions of the Oedipus myth. While the results of his analysis are questionable, it does offer a good example of his method.²⁹

In studying the various versions of the myth, Lévi-Strauss found that the same types of relations distinctly recur within and across the various versions, without any logical relation to the story succession. Hence he reached the conclusion that the myth wants to draw attention to its deep structure rather than to its developing story. He defined these types of relations recurring in the myth’s story as the myth’s constituent units. Claiming that story is a level of language that is higher than sentences, words and letters and yet manifests the same relational structure pertaining to these lower levels, he decided to call these story units ‘mythemes’ in their being

‘gross’ constituent units of language, that is, units of a higher order than phonemes or monemes, yet manifesting the same relational structure.³⁰ He then suggested a rearrangement of the myth in such a way that each recurring type of relation is grouped together and yet the evolving story order of the myth is maintained.

Hence, if the story line proceeds along the following numbers (each representing a relation in the story): 1, 2, 4, 3, 2, 4, 1, 1, 3, 2, 4, the rearrangement would render the following layout:

1 2

4 3

2 4

1

1 3

2 4

In such a rearrangement the different types of relations are grouped together in each column but, if you read from left to right and from top to bottom, the story line is maintained. Thus a synchronic reading of the myth (i.e. by columns) is superimposed upon its diachronically evolving story line.

Following this rearrangement of the Oedipus myth, Lévi-Strauss found the following four types of similar relations: (1) sexual attraction between family relatives (a brother desires a sister; a son desires his mother); (2) hostile relations between

family relatives (brothers kill each other; a son murders his father); (3) the idea that humans are born from the earth is rejected (a strange conclusion reached by Lévi-Strauss from the myth’s figuration of monsters that have to be killed for humans to be born from the earth, implying that humans may originate from different sources);

(4) the idea that humans are born from the earth is embraced (a conclusion reached from the grouping of the similar meaning of names of heroes that denote some type of deformation of the leg, believed by ancient Greeks to indicate birth from the earth).

Having grouped the recurring types of relations into constituent units, Lévi-Strauss proceeded to position them in binary oppositions so as to unearth the myth’s deep synchronic structure. This revealed that the first two columns offer contradictory views on family relations, while the last two columns offer contradictory views on the idea that humans originate from the earth. He then positioned columns 1 and 2 in binary opposition to columns 3 and 4 based on the issue shared by all columns, which he found to be ‘the origin of humans’. Hence, while columns 1 and 2 reject and embrace the idea that humans originate from other humans, columns 3 and 4 reject and embrace the idea that humans originate from the earth.

Having gone this far, Lévi-Strauss now noticed that columns 1 and 2 refer to the Greeks’ life experiences, whereas columns 3 and 4 refer to their ‘cosmology’ or religion. Therefore he reached the conclusion that the main contradiction expressed by the Oedipus myth is between the ancient Greeks’ life experiences (humans are born from humans) and their religion (humans are born from the earth). He then noticed that what the myth does is to offer a kind of solution to this irresolvable contradiction, which probably bothered the ancient Greeks very much. Hence he maintained that the myth ‘resolves’ this contradiction between life and religion by turning the contradiction between columns 1 and 2 (life experience) and columns 3 and 4 (religion) into an equivalence ‘by the assertion that contradictory relationships [i.e. between life experiences and religion] are identical inasmuch as they are both self-contradictory in a similar way’. Hence, he claimed, since in life as in religion there are contradicting evidences as to the origin of humans, ‘social life validates cosmology by its similarity of structure [i.e. similar contradiction]’.³¹

Lévi-Strauss proceeded to find variations upon this logical procedure in different myths pertaining to different cultures.³² He concluded that the function of myth is to offer a fictive solution to irresolvable contradictions on issues that are extremely important to the society entertaining the myth. The fact that the contradiction is irresolvable and bothering explained in his view why new versions of myths offering fictive solutions keep coming out. It also explained why myths seem similar to each other across cultures. This was because myths are ‘mythical’ because of their shared peculiar deep structure and not because of the specific and concrete events they tell us about.