Structuralism and Literary Criticism: Gerard Genette

Structuralism is the offshoot of certain developments in linguistics and anthropology. Saussure’s mode of the synchronic study of language was an attempt to formulate the grammar of a language from a study of parole. Using the Saussurian linguistic model, Claude Levi-Strauss examined the customs and conventions of some cultures with a view of arriving at the grammar of those cultures. 

There are two types of methodology used by critics for study of language.

1.Diachronic

2.Synchronic

Diachronic and Synchronicare two different viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A synchronic approach considers a language at a moment in a time without taking its history into account, Synchronic linguistics aims at describing a language at a specific point of time,usually the present.

Languge = Langue + Parole

In simple way Languge means the entire human potential for speech, Langue means the system that each of us uses to generate discourse which is intelligible to others, and Parole is individual utterance.

Sign = Signifier + Signified

Sign is anything that coveys the message, signifier give meaning in word or image and signified is related with mental concept, what evokes in the mind.

Example: Cow-sign, four lagged animal-signifier, religious belief as Gay Mata-signified.

Genette also gave the concept of narratology. Mainly the five concepts were used by Genette in Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method.

1.    Order

2.    Frequency

3.    Duration

4.    Voice

5.    Mood

1) Order:-

—Arranged chronologically the events run A1, B2, C3. arranged in the text they may run B1(discovery): to a find one ship, A2(flashback): Rose Dewitt come and tell whole story of that ship,  C3(resolution): finally whole things know about that ship

Frequency:-

The separation between an event and its narration allows several possibilities.

An event can occur once and be narrated once(singular)

“ROSE: I love you, Jack.

JACK: No...don’t say your goodbyes, Rose. Don’t you give up. Don’t do it.

ROSE: I’m so cold.

JACK: You’re going to get out of this...you’re going to go on and you’re going to make babies and watch them grow and you’re going to die an old lady, warm in your bed. Not here...Not this night. Do you understand me?

ROSE: I can’t feel my body.

JACK: Rose, listen to me. Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me. It brought me to you. And I’m thankful, Rose. I’m thankful. You must do me this honour...promise me you will survive....that you will never give up...not matter what happens...no matter how hopeless...promise me now, and never let go of that promise.

ROSE: I promise.

JACK: Never let go.

ROSE: I promise. I will never let go, Jack. I’ll never let go.”

Duration:-

The separation between an event and its narration means that there is discourse time and narrative time. These are the two main elements of duration.

"Five years passed", has a lengthy discourse time, five years, but a short narrative time (it only took a second to read).

“84 years later, a 100 year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story”

Voice:-

Voice is concerned with who narrates, and from where. This can be split four ways.

Is the narrator a character in the story?

Yes rose tell the whole story.

Mood:-

Genette said narrative mood is dependent on the 'distance' and 'perspective' of the narrator, and like music, narrative mood has predominant patterns. It is related to voice.

Distance of the narrator changes with narrated speech, transposed speech and reported speech.

Perspective of the narrator is called focalization. Narratives can be non-focalized, internally focalized or externally focalized.