STRUCTURALISM

Structuralism is a 20th Century intellectual movement and approach to the human sciences (it
has had a profound effect on linguistics, sociology, anthropology and other fields in addition to
philosophy) that attempts to analyze a specific field as a complex system of interrelated parts.
Broadly speaking, Structuralism holds that all human activity and its products, even perception
and thought itself, are constructed and not natural, and in particular that everything has meaning
because of the language system in which we operate. It is closely related to Semiotics, the study
of signs, symbols and communication, and how meaning is constructed and understood.
There are four main common ideas underlying Structuralism as a general movement: firstly, every
system has a structure; secondly, the structure is what determines the position of each element
of a whole; thirdly, "structural laws" deal with coexistence rather than changes; and fourthly,
structures are the "real things" that lie beneath the surface or the appearance of meaning.
Structuralism is widely regarded to have its origins in the work of the Swiss linguistic theorist
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 - 1913) in the early 20th Century, but it soon came to be applied to
many other fields, including philosophy, anthropology, psychoanalysis, sociology, literary theory
and even mathematics. In the early 20th Century, Saussure developed a science of signs based on
linguistics (semiotics or semiology). He held that any language is just a complex system of
signs that express ideas, with rules which govern their usage. He called the underlying abstract
structure of a language, "langue", and the concrete manifestations or embodiments, "parole". He
concluded that any individual sign is essentially arbitrary, and that there is no natural relationship
between a signifier (e.g. the word "dog") and the signified (e.g. the mental concept of the actual
animal).
Unlike the Romantic or Humanist models, which hold that the author is the starting point or
progenitor of any text, Structuralism argues that any piece of writing (or any "signifying system")
has no origin, and that authors merely inhabit pre-existing structures ("langue") that enable
them to make any particular sentence or story ("parole"), hence the idea that "language speaks
us", rather than that we speak language. Structuralism was also to some extent a reaction against
Phenomenology in that it argued that the "depth" of experience could in fact only be an effect of
structures which are not themselves experiential.
Although they would probably all have denied being part of this so-called movement, the
philosopher Michel Foucault, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908 - ), the psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan (1901 - 1981), the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980), the
linguists Roman Jakobson (1896 - 1982) and Noam Chomsky (1928 - ), the literary critic Roland
Barthes (1915 - 1980) and the Marxist theorists Louis Althusser (1918 - 1990) and Nicos
Poulantzas (1936 - 1979) were all instrumental in developing the theory and techniques of
Structuralism, most of this development occurring in France.
Barthes, in particular, demonstrated the way in which the mass media disseminated ideological
views based on its ability to make signs, images and signifiers work in a particular way,
conveying deeper, mythical meanings within popular culture than the surface images immediately
suggest (e.g. the Union jack signifies the nation, the crown, the empire, "Britishness", etc)

JOHN KEATS - ODE ON A GRECIAN URN

Summary
In the first stanza, the speaker stands before an ancient Grecian urn and addresses it. He is
preoccupied with its depiction of pictures frozen in time. It is the “still unravish’d bride of quietness,”
the “foster-child of silence and slow time.” He also describes the urn as a “historian” that can tell a
story. He wonders about the figures on the side of the urn and asks what legend they depict and
from where they come. He looks at a picture that seems to depict a group of men pursuing a group
of women and wonders what their story could be: “What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? /
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?”

In the second stanza, the speaker looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man
playing a pipe, lying with his lover beneath a glade of trees. The speaker says that the piper’s
“unheard” melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time. He
tells the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover because he is frozen in time, he should not
grieve, because her beauty will never fade. In the third stanza, he looks at the trees surrounding
the lovers and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves. He is happy for the piper because
his songs will be “for ever new,” and happy that the love of the boy and the girl will last forever,
unlike mortal love, which lapses into “breathing human passion” and eventually vanishes, leaving
behind only a “burning forehead, and a parching tongue.”
In the fourth stanza, the speaker examines another picture on the urn, this one of a group of
villagers leading a heifer to be sacrificed. He wonders where they are going (“To what green altar,
O mysterious priest...”) and from where they have come. He imagines their little town, empty of all
its citizens, and tells it that its streets will “for evermore” be silent, for those who have left it, frozen
on the urn, will never return. In the final stanza, the speaker again addresses the urn itself, saying
that it, like Eternity, “doth tease us out of thought.” He thinks that when his generation is long dead,
the urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic lesson: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”
The speaker says that that is the only thing the urn knows and the only thing it needs to know.
FORM
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” follows the same ode-stanza structure as the “Ode on Melancholy,” though
it varies more the rhyme scheme of the last three lines of each stanza. Each of the five stanzas in
“Grecian Urn” is ten lines long, metered in a relatively precise iambic pentameter, and divided into
a two part rhyme scheme, the last three lines of which are variable. The first seven lines of each
stanza follow an ABABCDE rhyme scheme, but the second occurrences of the CDE sounds do not
follow the same order. In stanza one, lines seven through ten are rhymed DCE; in stanza two,
CED; in stanzas three and four, CDE; and in stanza five, DCE, just as in stanza one. As in other
odes (especially “Autumn” and “Melancholy”), the two-part rhyme scheme (the first part made of
AB rhymes, the second of CDE rhymes) creates the sense of a two-part thematic structure as well.
The first four lines of each stanza roughly define the subject of the stanza, and the last six roughly
explicate or develop it. (As in other odes, this is only a general rule, true of some stanzas more
than others; stanzas such as the fifth do not connect rhyme scheme and thematic structure closely
at all.)
THEMES
If the “Ode to a Nightingale” portrays Keats’s speaker’s engagement with the fluid expressiveness
of music, the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” portrays his attempt to engage with the static immobility of
sculpture. The Grecian urn, passed down through countless centuries to the time of the speaker’s
viewing, exists outside of time in the human sense—it does not age, it does not die, and indeed it
is alien to all such concepts. In the speaker’s meditation, this creates an intriguing paradox for the
human figures carved into the side of the urn: They are free from time, but they are simultaneously
frozen in time. They do not have to confront aging and death (their love is “for ever young”), but
neither can they have experience (the youth can never kiss the maiden; the figures in the
procession can never return to their homes).
The speaker attempts three times to engage with scenes carved into the urn; each time he asks
different questions of it. In the first stanza, he examines the picture of the “mad pursuit” and
wonders what actual story lies behind the picture: “What men or gods are these? What maidens
loth?” Of course, the urn can never tell him the whos, whats, whens, and wheres of the stories it
depicts, and the speaker is forced to abandon this line of questioning.
In the second and third stanzas, he examines the picture of the piper playing to his lover beneath
the trees. Here, the speaker tries to imagine what the experience of the figures on the urn must be
like; he tries to identify with them. He is tempted by their escape from temporality and attracted to
the eternal newness of the piper’s unheard song and the eternally unchanging beauty of his lover.
He thinks that their love is “far above” all transient human passion, which, in its sexual expression,
inevitably leads to an abatement of intensity—when passion is satisfied, all that remains is a
wearied physicality: a sorrowful heart, a “burning forehead,” and a “parching tongue.” His
recollection of these conditions seems to remind the speaker that he is inescapably subject to
them, and he abandons his attempt to identify with the figures on the urn.
In the fourth stanza, the speaker attempts to think about the figures on the urn as though they were
experiencing human time, imagining that their procession has an origin (the “little town”) and a
destination (the “green altar”). But all he can think is that the town will forever be deserted: If these
people have left their origin, they will never return to it. In this sense he confronts head-on the limits
of static art; if it is impossible to learn from the urn the whos and wheres of the “real story” in the
first stanza, it is impossible ever to know the origin and the destination of the figures on the urn in
the fourth.
It is true that the speaker shows a certain kind of progress in his successive attempts to engage
with the urn. His idle curiosity in the first attempt gives way to a more deeply felt identification in the
second, and in the third, the speaker leaves his own concerns behind and thinks of the
processional purely on its own terms, thinking of the “little town” with a real and generous feeling.
But each attempt ultimately ends in failure. The third attempt fails simply because there is nothing
more to say—once the speaker confronts the silence and eternal emptiness of the little town, he
has reached the limit of static art; on this subject, at least, there is nothing more the urn can tell
him.
In the final stanza, the speaker presents the conclusions drawn from his three attempts to engage
with the urn. He is overwhelmed by its existence outside of temporal change, with its ability to
“tease” him “out of thought / As doth eternity.” If human life is a succession of “hungry generations,”
as the speaker suggests in “Nightingale,” the urn is a separate and self-contained world. It can be
a “friend to man,” as the speaker says, but it cannot be mortal; the kind of aesthetic connection the
speaker experiences with the urn is ultimately insufficient to human life.
The final two lines, in which the speaker imagines the urn speaking its message to mankind
—”Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” have proved among the most difficult to interpret in the Keats
canon. After the urn utters the enigmatic phrase “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” no one can say for
sure who “speaks” the conclusion, “that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” It could
be the speaker addressing the urn, and it could be the urn addressing mankind. If it is the speaker
addressing the urn, then it would seem to indicate his awareness of its limitations: The urn may not
need to know anything beyond the equation of beauty and truth, but the complications of human
life make it impossible for such a simple and self-contained phrase to express sufficiently anything
about necessary human knowledge. If it is the urn addressing mankind, then the phrase has rather
the weight of an important lesson, as though beyond all the complications of human life, all human
beings need to know on earth is that beauty and truth are one and the same. It is largely a matter
of personal interpretation which reading to accept.

M. BAKHTIN- DISCOURSE IN THE NOVEL

1981
In “Epic and Novel,” Bakhtin argues that the novel flourishes on diversity, making it uniquely suited
to post-industrial society. The novel can “swallow” and ape other genres without losing the integrity
of its form (unlike the epic, for example). In “Discourse in the Novel,” Bakhtin introduces his idea of
heteroglossia, based on “extralinguistic” features common across languages, like perspective,
evaluation, and ideology, so that language cannot be fully neutralized because it is always defined
by context. The focus of this essay is the insistence that literary study must neither be “formal” nor
“ideological,” but that form and content are unified in discourse. The fixation on style, cut off from
the sociality of discourse, is flat and abstract and the two must be put in conversation. “The novel
as a whole is a phenomenon multiform in style and variform in speech and voice” 1192. Its
“structured artistic system” is made up of direct narration, stylized narration, stylized everyday
forms like the letter or diary, other literary but extra-artistic forms like scientific or journalistic texts,
and stylized individual speech of characters 1192. They form together “a higher stylistic unity of the
work as a whole, a unity that cannot be identified with any single one of the unities subordinated to
it” 1192.
“The stylistic uniqueness of the novel as a genre consists precisely in the combination of these
subordinated, yet still relatively autonomous, unities (even at times comprised of different
languages) into the higher unity of the work as a whole… the language of a novel is the system of
its ‘languages'” 1192.
“The novel orchestrates all its themes, the totality of the world of objects and ideas depicted and
expressed in it, by means of the social diversity of speech types and by the differing individual
voices that flourish under such conditions” 1192.
Because of this, critics often treat style or genre, not both, which the novel requires – the novel is
often treated as ‘epic,’ and is therefore undervalued. (I wonder if James Wood’s idea of the novel
isn’t as outdated as calling it an epic… the contemporary novel still adheres to most of Bakhtin’s
aesthetic categories, just differently so.)
“At the time when poetry was accomplishing the task of cultural, national and political centralization
of the verbal-ideological world… on the lower levels, on the stages of local fairs and at buffoon
spectacles, the heteroglossia of the clown sounded forth, ridiculing all ‘languages’ and dialects…
all ‘languages’ were masks and where no language could claim to be an authentic, incontestable
face” 1200.
(It’s interesting to consider that he uses the word ‘face’ – also what about The Waste Land?) The
problem with readings of the novel, for Bakhtin, is that they seek the same unity in diversity that
languages themselves show, rather than dialogism between the text and outside world.
“No living word relates to its object in a singular way: between the word and its object, between the
word and the speaking subject, there exists an elastic environment of other, alien words about the
same object, the same theme, and this is an environment that is often difficult to penetrate… The
word, directed toward its object, enters a dialogically agitated and tension-filled environment of
alien words, value judgments and accents, weaves in and out of complex interrelationships… this
may crucially shape discourse, may leave a trace” 1202.
“A word forms a concept of its own object in a dialogic way… It encounters an alien word not only
in the object itself: every word is directed toward an answer and cannot escape the profound
influence of the answering word that it anticipates… oriented toward the listener and his answer”
1205.
For Bakhtin, poetic discourse is closed off to alien languages, indisputable, whereas novelistic
discourse is open to them, variable.
“At any given moment of its historical existence, language is heteroglot from top to bottom: it
represents the coexistence of socio-ideological contradictions between the present and the past,
between differing epochs of the past, between different socio-ideological groups in the present,
between tendencies, schools, circles, and so forth, all given a bodily form… each… requires a
methodology very different from the others” 1214.
(I wonder if you could consider The Wire as attempting to do this televisually.)
“The poet strips the word of others’ intentions, he uses only such words and forms (and only in
such a way) that they lose their link with concrete intentional levels of language and their
connection with specific contexts… Everything that enters the work must immerse itself in Lethe,
and forget its previous life in any other contexts: language may remember only its life in poetic
contexts” 1217.
This seems like a sort of “poetic suture” for Bakhtin. I think it is overstated, to be sure, especially
given the existence of Eliot, but it is interesting to think about how this could be compared with the
especially heteroglot, object-oriented worlds of the contemporary novel or TV series, which take
Bakhtin’s and Kristeva’s ideas about heteroglossia to their most fecund point.
“When heteroglossia enters the novel it becomes subject to an artistic reworking. The social and
historical voices populating language, all its words and all its forms, which provide language with its
particular concrete conceptualizations, are organized in the novel into a structured stylistic system
that expresses the differentiated socio-ideological position of the author amid the heteroglossia of
his epoch” 1220.

F. SAUSSURE- COURSE IN GENERAL LINGUISTICS

When we deal with the separation of language from speech we are removing what is a social
construct from that which is purely individual. Language is essential whereas speech is a mere
accessory of the same. What Saussure does is examine the relationship between speech (parole)
and evolution of language (langue). Also, being a structuralist he examines language as a system
of signs. Speaking is an individual activity while language can be termed as a social
manifestation of it. It links both thought and sound or it articulates them.
Characteristics of language

(1) Language can be localized in a limited system in order that phonic images can be associated
with concepts. Language is social in the sense that there is a general consensus as to meaning of
words that cannot be altered by an individual. Also, one assimilates language and so it is
something learned

(2) Unlike speech, languages that are dead can even now be studied by their linguistic features
(3) While speech is heterogeneous, language is defined as homogeneous. It can be called a
system of signs that have psychological basis where the main thrust is the union of the meaning
and sound-image

(4) Just because linguistic signs are arbitrarily based they are not abstract. Language is
concrete because collective approval leads to the acceptance of signs, their concepts and sound-
images which makes language have its own little place in the brain.

Relationship of Sign, Signifier and Signified

Language is not a mere naming process as it would mean that an idea existed before it could be
given words. It is not easy to link a name and thing as a linguistic unit is a double entity formed
by the associations of two terms. Both terms of the linguistic sign are psychological and have an
associative bond. Sign unites not a thing and its name but a concept and a sound-image. The
sound image is not the physical sound but the silent imprint of it. That is how we can read
aloud, silently or even speak to ourselves. There is no precedence or sequence in the recall of
the sound-image or concept. We do not first mentally picture a tree and then link it to its
concept or vice versa. Both the sound-image and concept have to be united and are thus,
recalled together.
Linguistic Sign
The combination of a concept and a sound-image is a sign. The signified is the concept whereas
the signifier is the sound-image.

Signifier (sound-image 't-a-b-l-e)

Signified (concept of 'table') Sign (the actual 'table')

Arbitrary Nature of the Sign

As discussed before, the signifier and signified are arbitrarily based and the sign which is the
product of these two parts is also arbitrary. Sound-images or signifiers do not in any way really
give some idea of the sign. The sounds “t-r-e-e” do not resemble a tree in any case. Also, the
term arbitrary when used in reference to the signifier indicates that it has no natural connection
with the signified.
Ø Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeic formations are limited in number and they vary in their representation across
languages. While to an English speaker a dog barking may sound like “bow-wow”; French
speakers may hear “oua-oua” instead while Gujarati speakers might understand it to be “bow-
bow”. Thus, onomatopoeia is not natural it is a product of culture.
Ø Interjections

Like onomatopoeia, interjections too are a product of culture as if a French cook spills the
butter she might say “aÏe” while an English one will say “ouch”. Also, many interjections were
words which one had their own specific meaning.

Linear Nature of the Signifier

The signifier is auditory and so the changes that occur are best studied through time. The
characteristics of the signifier: (a) represents a span (b) the span can be measured only through
a line. To study a signifier diachronically would be through the axis of simultaneities (AB) which
would be a more evolutionary study for it would deal with changes over a period of time. A
synchronic study, the axis of succession (CD); would concern studying a particular part of a
whole at a given point of time.

Static or synchronic linguistic studies are based on the study of language at a particular point in
time whereas the evolutionary or diachronic mode studies historical and evolutionary within
language. By nature, linguistic signs are linear as they represent a span in one dimension.
Auditory signifiers are linear as they form a chain and so can also be termed a speech chain.
Linguistic Value from Conceptual Viewpoint
When we think of a word we tend to think of the idea associated with it which to an extent
encompasses its linguistic value. But, one must remember that value differs from signification.
Value from a conceptual viewpoint, is one element of signification. Signification is different from
value whoever for had it been similar, language would have been a naming-process. Looking at
the example of the union of sound-image with concept would lead one to believe a word to be
both independent and self-contained. While the concept may seem to be a counterpart of the
sound-image; the sign itself is a counterpart of other signs in a language.

In language, terms are interdependent so, the value of each term results from the simultaneous
presence of others. Value is based on other entities even outside language like in the case of
money. The value of a one rupee coin will be considered higher or lower based on the coins
placed with it. Thus, the same paradoxical principles are at play:

(1) a dissimilar thing can be exchanged for a thing of which value has to be determined – 99Rs
can equate to 18000 seconds of talktime; thus, a dissimilar thing is used to set a value

(2) similar things can be compared with the things of which value has to be determined

Therefore, a word can be exchanged for an idea (something dissimilar. Since it can only be
exchanged for a given concept its value is not fixed. A word has to be compared with other
words sharing similar values and those opposing it. Other words may have similarity but not
sameness. Like ‘house’ is similar to ‘home’ but has differences within it. Since the word is a part
of a system the signification and also the value are based on the other members or words in the
system. Two words with the same idea will result in the death of one eventually. When a plural
or inflectional change is added to the word we get a whole new signifier and signified.
Had there been concepts existing before language then all words would have the same
equivalents of meaning across languages. Since pre-existing ideas do not exist values come from
the system. Values are said to correspond to concepts but these concepts are not defined by
their positive content but negatively by their relations with other terms in the system. They are
more precisely defined by what characterizes them from being not the others. Thus, the concept
“to write” is linked to the sound-image ‘writer’ symbolizing signification. The concept here is a
value determined by its relations with similar values without which, signification would not
exist.

Linguistic Value from a Material Viewpoint

Value from a conceptual and material view is based on its relations and differences with other
terms or language. It is differences that carry signification, so a word is not just a sound but the
phonic differences hat make it up. Language has to be based on its noncoincidence with the
arbitrary and differential as correlative qualities. The alteration of linguistic signs is the best
examples, a/b have sufficient difference to make an impression on the consciousness. A
linguistic signifier isn’t merely phonic but though incorporeal has a material substance by the
difference that separate ‘m-a-t’ from ‘c-a-t’. The signs used in writing are arbitrary as well as
there is no connection between the sound and symbol of designation. The value of letters is
negative and differential and letters can be written in any font so long as there can be
differentiated from each other. Besides, the values function only in that particular fixed system
as a Chinese alphabet in English would have no meaning as there is no opposition with the other
letters.

Sign Considered in Its Totality

In language there are only differences without positive terms. Before the linguistic system there
were neither ideas nor sounds and with the establishment of the system one has phonic or
conceptual differences. The value of a term can be changed if the value of a term near it
changes though its meaning and sound may stay the same.

Signified and Signifier as Differential and Negative

When signified and signifier are considered separately then it can be said that language is
negative, when the sign is considered in its totality, a positive relation comes about. When we
look at a linguistic system we see that is consists of differences of sound combined with
differences of ideas. A combination of a particular number of sound signs with those many
concepts forms a system of values; this value system is a link between the phonic and
psychological aspects within each sign. Signifier and signified, are differential and negative
when considered as separate entities. But when you bring the two together you have something
positive as can be seen from the value derived. The combination of the signified and signifier is
a positive fact even though looked at separately a negative difference is found.

Comparison Exists between Signs

In the case of sign though, difference cannot be spoken of as comparison leads to positive terms.
There can be opposition between two signs but not difference like that which exists between
signified and signifier. Like take for example a burger and pizza, they are both types of food but
they oppose each other. The concept of a burger is completely different in our minds to that of a
pizza and so though they are both junk food we won’t mix up one for the other.

Unit
Like a value, a unit is a double entity; it exists due to the association of two terms i.e. concept
and sound-image which constitutes a sign. The linguistic value of a word (signifier) comes
through its correspondence to a certain concept (signified). The value of a concept stems from
its relationship with other concepts. And the value of the sign in whole comes from the
relationship of sound-image and concept. Thus, a unit is a segment of speech (spoken chain) –
sound aspect- that corresponds to a concept. What sets the unit apart is what defines it for a
differential relationship exists. Whatever distinguishes on sign from the other defines it or
constitutes it.

Language is a form and not a substance. It is composed of a particular linguistic system and
though you cannot see language, it exists as a reality within the brain.

ROLAND BARTHES- DEATH OF THE AUTHOR

Roland Barthes says in his essay The Death of the Author, “The birth of the reader must be at the
cost of the death of the Author.” For the most part I agree with this statement. There can be no real
level of independent thinking achieved by the reader if their thoughts are dictated by the Author’s
opinions and biases. For this reason there needs to be a distance between the Author and those
who read the work.
Barthes makes two main points as to why the death of the Author is an inevitable and beneficial
occurrence. To begin with Barthes states that the author is merely a way through which a story is
told. They neither create the story nor form it, these have already been done. The author is merely
retelling this story that has already been told many times. His argument against original thought is
very persuasive, especially considering the many ways stories have been logically broken down
into a predictable sequence of events. For instance, Vladimir Propp (Literary Theory) a Russian
Formalist used Formalist theories to determine thirty one plot functions in Russian folk tales. Each
folk tale has at least some, if not all, of these functions, typically in the order which he has
organized them but occasionally one or two will be inverted. Most modern fairy tales are merely an
adaptation of a classic fairy tale and they follow the general functions that Propp outlined.
Even beyond fairy tales, most fiction stories fall into a typical patter with a beginning problem, a
training period, a set back of the hero, the hero overcoming the obstacle, the conflict, and finally
resolution. There are no original thoughts, just old thoughts combined in different patterns or
adjusted to fit the current society. Music, fashion, and movies are an example of the never ending
recycling of ideas. There are only so many musical combinations or clothing styles that people find
pleasing. It is inevitable that old styles will be used to “inspire” new ones. It is easy to see in all
different areas of society how there are few no new ideas, merely old ideas being reused.
Barthes second point is that if the reader were to view the work through the Author’s eyes then
they would gain no benefit from the reading. By associating the Author with the text, the text is
automatically limited. Instead of drawing their own meaning from the text using their own
experiences and therefore stimulating their own thoughts of their lives and how it connects with the
world around them the reader is then restricted to trying to guess what the author meant. The
reader focuses on understanding the Author’s opinions and whether they agree with the Author
and don’t focus on their own thoughts and opinions of the piece.
Barthes claims that it is the status of the reader that should be elevated, not the status of the
Author. If the reader gains any deep insight from a piece of writing it should not be considered due
to the Author’s genius but instead to the personal experiences of the reader providing them with an
insightful interpretation. Barthes believes that if it is the reader who brings meaning to the text then
there can be no limit to the interpretations available because everyone in the world has their own
unique experiences that have shaped them.
For the independent thinking of readers and the growth of their skills of interpretation the death
of the Author is necessary, in most cases. The death of the Author is not always a necessary
occurrence however, in some cases the presence of the Author is needed for the reader to achieve
a greater understanding of what is being read. For instance, in the book Slaughterhouse 5: A
Children’s Crusade, Kurt Vonnegut went through great effort to make himself known at the
beginning of the book. The entire first chapter is told in first person from the author’s point of view
as he rambles about how he wanted to write a book about the bombing of Dresden. He was there
when Dresden was bombed and was one of the only survivors. The first chapter of the book he
describes how he has wanted to write a book about the bombing of Dresden for years but he’s
never been able to find the right words. “There’s nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.”
Vonnegut said.
After spending the first chapter introducing the reader to himself Vonnegut then proceeds to take
himself out of the story (for the most part) and instead tell the story of Billy Pilgrim. Pilgrim had also
survived the bombing of Dresden but a head injury later in life combined with post traumatic stress
disorder caused Pilgrim to lose his grip on reality. Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time and being
unstuck causes him to flash back and forth from the past to the future and back again. As a reader
if I had not known Vonnegut’s background as one of the few survivors of the bombing of Dresden
then I would have not been able to understand the book. I would have seen it as crazy and
disjointed and not have been able to draw any meaning out of it. However, looking through the
eyes of the Author I got an understanding and view of the events that was completely different from
what I would have understood on my own.
If the Author is writing on a topic of which the reader will have their own past experiences to
compare it to then the birth of the reader must come at the cost of the death of the Author.
However, if the reader has no experiences on which to base their judgments or to grasp the
meaning of the text with then it might be necessary for the Author to tell the reader of their own
experiences. I agree with Barthes when he says that the reader and the readers interpretation and
understanding of a text is what is important. However, sometimes the understanding of the reader
is best helped by the presence of the Author.
That being said, the Author should only make an appearance if it will help the understanding of
the reader. Here again, the focus is on the reader and their understanding, not on the Author. It is
inevitable though that some readers will have a certain mindset about a book before they even buy
it because of the author’s name on the cover. The reader may have liked a different book the
author had written or had disliked it, but depending on which it was before they pick the book up
they will already have an idea of what it is going to be like. Some readers have been known to buy
entire series after reading the first book because they know they like the Author so much. They are
basing four or five books off of their experience from one and the name of the Author. Should it be
that way? Authors want to claim credit for the work they’ve done but Barthes says that where the
work originated from isn’t what’s important, it’s the destination that matters.
If we were to take Barthes statement that authors are not creating new material merely meshing
bits and pieces from previous writings together, then for the author to claim credit of the piece
would essentially be plagerism, for they would be taking credit for thoughts that were not theirs.
Putting their names on books could qualify for intellectual property theft as well, according to
Barthes. Unless, of course, the author is not seeking to take credit for the story itself but instead
wants to take credit for the order in which the words are put together to form the story. So maybe
the author is not dead at all. After all, if the author was completely dead then there would be no
names on the covers of books. Not only would they not be allowed to take credit for a story that
has already been told but they would not be allowed to affect the reader’s interpretation of their
story.
Even though Barthes thinks that knowing the Authors background would be detrimental to the
readers interpretation of the text I wonder if the public would really wish to know nothing about the
writer whose book they are reading. Is it possible that reading the book without the name or basic
information of the author could be like watching a movie without knowing what the rating or the plot
summary of the movie is? To what extent is it right to broaden the readers horizons? Some people
choose to live highly sheltered lives, only reading certain things or watching specific t.v. shows.
Anything that doesn’t fall under their approved categories is to be completely ignored. So if we
were to take the Authors name off of books, would going into a bookstore be akin to playing a
game of Russian Roulette for them? Not knowing the author means not knowing if there may be
any hidden surprises in the book. So aside from the Author’s objections to not getting credit for
their work, would the readers object? In this way the Author isn’t dead, for their reputation still
affects the readers choice and open mindedness to the book.
It seems that when Barthes says “the birth of the reader must come at the cost of the death of
the Author,” he is thinking idealistically, not realistically. It would help the interpretations and
understanding of the reader for there to be no connection between the Author and the text, in that
Barthes is correct. If the only focus was the individual interpretations of the reader then the
absolute disassociation of the Author with the text would be a beneficial thing. However, I don’t
believe that the Author will ever be completely dead. Barthes said that the Author should get
neither praise for a good book not blamed for a bad one and yet this is exactly why the Author will
never be fully dead. Readers want heroes and villains, people to look up to and people to despise.
A good writer earns praise from the readers and social status, but a controversial writer can draw
just as much negative attention as an inspiring writer can draw positive attention. In this way
people seek to categorize their lives, and to categorize books the readers need labels. Their
favorite labels are the Authors who wrote the books. I think that the readers are partially
responsible for the continued presence of the Author, as well as the Author’s own interests in being
involved. Is the Author fully dead? No, but neither is he fully alive either. The Author is stuck
somewhere between.

JAKOBSON- TWO ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE …

Jakobson considers aphasia to be a language disturbance, and therefore it “. . . cannot be

solved without the parcitipation of professional linguists familiar with the patterining and functioning
of language” (116). He goes on to suggest that there has been a tendency by other disciplines to
overlook the importance and use of the linguist most notably when it concerns “infantile
aphasia” (116). But this is not entirely the fault of the other disciplines but also linguists themselves
which is interesting considering that Jakobson points out “the amazing progress of structural
linguistics [which] has endowed the investigator with efficient tools and methods . . .” that can lead
to “new insights into the general laws of language” (117).
He offers a very brief “task of the linguistic,” or a sort of didactic pointing out the necessity
of being cautious when studying language disturbances especially when dealing with cases of
psychological and of neurological nature. The linguist ought to “familiar with the technical terms
and devices of the medical disciplines dealing with aphasia” and they should submit their clinical
case reports to linguistic analysis—as well they should work directly with the aphasic as to
eliminate the middleman. The law of implication is established by way of comparing the
development of the child with regard to its language use as well as aphasia; but this is not without
incorporating both the phonemic pattern of the child but the grammatical system used as well.
As much as one considers the speaker of a sentence to operate his/her language freely,
this is not the case, “. . .selection (. . .) must be made from the lexical storehouse which he and his
addressee possess in common” (117). This establishes a commonality of language between
interlocutors, i.e. a common code. Phonemes (sounds) are grouped together to form words
(distinctive features). Linguistic constituents are composed of two entities: concurrence and
concatenation. The code of a language exists prior to the interlocutors and sets limitations on
combinations of phonemes. Phrase words cannot be taking individually but must be understood as
a whole word group of which “we need to be familiar only with the constituent words and with the
syntactic rules of their combination” (118).
There are two modes of arrangement involved in the formation of a linguistic sign: 1)
Combination (contexture): “any sign is made up of constituent signs and/or occurs only in
combination with other signs” (119). Selection (substitution): “A selection between alternatives
implies the possibility of substituting one for the other, equivalent in one respect and different in
another” (119). Combination is based on two or more terms present in the actual series of signs
and selection is where signs are selected that mean the same thing but are not present in the
phrase. Combination refers to constituents are combined from the storehouse of possible parts of
the code whereas selection or substitution signs are linked by similarity. These two operations of
arrangements allow two distinct possible interpretants of the sign: one based on the code and the
other the context. Linguistic signs are related to one another via two modes: alternation and
alignment, each of which is determined via “an internal relation and with the message by an
external relation” (120). Separation by space and time, of interlocutors, is crossed by the internal
relation based upon equivalent symbols “used by the addresser and those known and interpreted
by the addressee” (120).
 There are two basic types of aphasia and each corresponds to the two principle modes of
arrangement: combination and selection. For the selection aphasia “the context is the
indispensable and the decisive factor. When presented with scraps of words or sentences, such a
patient readily completes them” (121). However, it is difficult for him/her discourse of which he/she
is not experiencing first hand (a closed dialogue for example). The more a word is dependent and
the more it refers to the context of a sentence the less it will be affected by selection aphasia.
“Therefore words syntactically subordinated by grammatical agreement or government are more
tenacious, whereas the main subordinating agent of the sentence, viz. the subject, tends to be
omitted” (121). Sentences are seen as elliptical devices that are supplied from prior sentences—
thus words that serve as connectors or auxiliaries of prior sentences will survive. This means that
“. . . only the framework, the connecting links of communication, is spared by this type of aphasia
at its critical stage” (122). Jakobson gives the example that a patient never uses the word knife
alone but always according to its use and surroundings—“so the knife was changed from a free
form, capable of occurring alone, into a bound form” (122). As such, the reverse happens when
two equivalent words become two different meanings that cannot be linked to the unifying nature of
the words. Jakobson sums this up: “If one of the synonymic signs is present (. . .), then the other
sign (. . .) becomes redundant and consequently superfluous. . .Likewise, the picture of an object
will cause suppression of its name: a verbal sign is supplanted by a pictorial sign” (123). There is a
failure to shift from an icon to its corresponding verbal symbol.
Jakobson says that symbolic logic gives the science of language a distinction between
“object language” and “metalanguage,” which further stratifies the nature of language.
Metalinguistic operations is the interpretation of “one linguistic sign through other, . . ., signs of the
same language in a metalinguistic operation. . .” (123). Metalanguage is essential for the
acquisition of language and its normal functions—“The aphasic defect in the ‘capacity of naming’ is
properly a loss of metalanguage” (124). An example of this loss is represented in the inability to
put together the two words bachelor and unmarried man as being homonyms of one another.
Linguistic reality is labeled as the “idiolect” of an individual and when an aphasic cannot
code switch, the idiolect is the sole linguistic reality of the speaker. In some instances, that which
other speak can appear as gibberish or another unknown language all together if the aphasiac
does not feel addressed by the interlocutor. Selective aphasia can properly employ metaphor but
due to the nature of metonymy find, whereby selection is the primary component, difficult to
employ; “the relation between the use of an object and the means of its producing underlies the
metonymy . . .” employed (125). Thus selective aphasia is when the selective or metonymic
capacity of an individual is strongly.
In the contiguity disorder sentences lose their variety and/or are diminished. Jakboson
writes, “word order becomes chaotic; the ties of grammatical coordination and subordination . . .
are dissolved” (126). In this sense, the less a word depends on the grammatical context the more
likely it will remain in the sentence, unlike the case with a similarity disorder. This patient is
particularly good at similarities and substitutions, therefore identifications are more metaphoric in
nature (but that is not to say that rhetoric or poetic metaphor is capable.
There is also a tendency for this type of aphasic to dismiss sets of words (he-his-him) and
use one that would stand for all. This gives an oversimplification in his/her speech. In terms of
speech, this type of aphasic finds it difficult to “apprehend [a] sequence [of] words unknown to him”
and their particular national language from which they are derived (128). This is a conflict of
resolution of words into their phonetic constituents. There exists an inability to maintain the
hierarchy of linguistic units in this disorder.
Jakobson then writes of both disorders in terms of metaphoric (similarity disorder) and
metonymic (contiguity disorder) poles, where each disorder is distinctive to either end of the pole.
He goes on to say that in a normal verbal behavior both processes operate continually, however, if
close attention is heeded, there can exist influences such as a cultural pattern, personality, and
verbal style. Jakobson uses the image of a psychological test given to children whereby they say
the first response that comes to their mind after having seen a particular image. According to their
response one can distinguish whether there is a tendency or inclination towards metonymic
processes or metaphoric processes.
These two processes are therefore also translatable to the fine arts and are apparent—in
literature; Romanticism uses predominately the metaphoric process and Symbolism the metonymic
process. However, these two processes are not limited to simply the verbal arts but they occur “in
sign systems other than language” (130). Jakobson uses Cubism to highlight metonymy and
Surrealism to highlight metaphor.
 This “bipolar structure of language (or other semiotic systems) and, in aphasia, the fixation
on one of these poles to the exclusion of the other require systematic comparative study” (131).
Jakobson enforces the inclusion of linguists as integral when analysis and comparison of
syndromes that affect speech. And therefore, the linguistic approach of symbols can be integrated
when conducting a symbolic analysis of literature. The competition between metonymy and
metaphor is present in any symbolic process whether that is intrapersonal or social. “Thus in an
inquiry into the structure of dreams, the decisive question is whether the symbols and temporal
sequences used are based on contiguity (Freud’s metonymic ‘displacement’ and synecdochic
‘condensation) or on similarity (Freud’s ‘identification and symbolism’)” (132).
The method of a research more means to handle metaphor than metonymy because the
researcher is looking for connections of similar terms that can be substituted for another. Thus,
there appears to be difficulty to apply the theory pertaining to metaphor to the theory of metonymy.
The revelation of this article is that poetry primarily uses metaphor and prose, metonymy—but
somehow we have been led to believe that there is a “unipolar scheme” instead of the bipolar
scheme in the study of poetical tropes. In other words, “the principle of similarity underlies
poetry . . . Prose on the contrary, is forwarded essentially by contiguity” (133)