Criticisms (1 Viewer)

[benjams]

For the Skull Beneath the Skin, our teacher gave us a bunch of criticisms which we had to read about and then apply to TSBS. However, i'm majorly majorly confused about one - structuralist criticism.

Structuralist Criticism:

Because structuralist critics assume that human structure (or make sense of) reality by imposing patterns of meaning on it, and because they assume that these structures can only be interpreted in terms of the codes the structures emboy, they believe that writers will inevitably rely on such codes to create meaning, that texts will inevitably embody such codes, and that audiences will inevitably interpret texts. To understand a text, the critic must be familiar with the systematic codes that shape it; he must master the system(s) the text implies.

Structuralist adopts a position of not seeing things from within the cultural context of society. A structuralist would argue that traditional critics create a context for the work by relating it to their own view of life. Structuralist criticism points out how the text might be discussing the gap between the word written and the world. Traditional criticism finds a complex statement about life in a text whereas the structuralist critic sees limits on literature, how the world is more complex than the self-contained system of the text.


Does it mean that the structuralist critic, critic the structure imposed on reality by the characters in the novel? Would that then mean that it's basically critically analysing the deduction process that Cornelia goes through? And then, assuming the above is true, isn't that undermining the whole novel? Isn't the whole point of crime fiction for a crime to occur and the detective and the audience to go on a logical deduction process?????

ideas?

 

[omar273]

I personally wouldn't delve too far into critical interpretations. (It's not Module B). The syllabus doesn't ask you to subject your texts to critical interpretations. You would be much better off tracing how The Skull... reflects a certain aspect of the evolution of the Crime Fiction genre and why (and how?).

Although if you already did that and want a little extra, by all means add a bit of criticism in there.

Good luck

 

[kami]

Firstly: You don't need to go crazy with structuralism as that isn't the focus of the module, if it deepens your understanding and your teacher expects you to say something internally then fine - just don't get flustered over it.(As an added note, I think you were the one interested in communications so if you do go for that, you'll be doing this stuff in your degree so you might find it interesting to look at anyway.) And now on to the explanation.

Structuralism in a basic sense is about looking at a structure and deriving a specific meaning from it - its almost mathematical really, for example a structuralist would separate a text in to A, B and C and would always come to a conclusion of D. And that conclusion is fixed without much room for an alternative interpretation due to context.

An example, if I use the frog prince fairy tale, would be separating the story into prince ==> frog ==> prince and saying there is only one meaning derived from this[in this example it'd probably be "don't judge a book by its cover".

If we were to apply this to TSBTS, we'd probably(I've never applied a structuralist reading to TSBTS so take this more as a technical example then a literal one) have to separate it out into its basic plot structure[eg employment==>crime==>discovery==>evasion] and derive a single expected message. If you apply this sort of method to a variety of crime fiction you'll see generic structures continually popping up though its more usually the crime ==> evasion ==> punishment model, like you'd see nearly every week on TV.

 

[benjams]

thanks....i kinda understand it now....so its more the structure of the whole novel? and is it linked to archtypal characters at all??

yeah its more of an enforced thing - so stupid though - nowhere on any assessment sheet does it say we need to have any criticisms and now she says (my teacher) that we have to have 2 (take a pick out of post-modern, femenist, strucutralist and psycho-analytical)

 

[kami]

thanks....i kinda understand it now....so its more the structure of the whole novel? and is it linked to archtypal characters at all??

Its more about the form of the story - the plot and plot devices, which can be character archetypes but not neccesarily.

 

[benjams]

so with archtypal criticisms - its more the plot device - so like in The Big Sleep, Chandler's Marlowe is the typical tough guy "down and out" detective, working alone but never lonely, being instantly attractive and having sexual prowess but not being in a relationship? - would that be it? or is that more because of the values of the time = eg post ww2, typical character of that era....?

thanks

 

[kami]

so with archtypal criticisms - its more the plot device - so like in The Big Sleep, Chandler's Marlowe is the typical tough guy "down and out" detective, working alone but never lonely, being instantly attractive and having sexual prowess but not being in a relationship? - would that be it? or is that more because of the values of the time = eg post ww2, typical character of that era....?

thanks

With Big Sleep you've got employment ==> crime ==> discovery ==> 'justice'
which reveals things about how the genre is structured if you compare it with the structure of The Skull Beneath the Skin. You could also do Big Sleep from a structuralist perspective on the romance - boy meets girl etc.

This shows that fundamentally that stories within the genre all employ the same basic structures and you can apply this to heaps of stuff.

To further this, some people believe there are only 4 stories in the world, one of them being the 'boy meets girl' story and another being the sacraficial(think jesus - bad thing happens ==> person sacrafices ==> redemption). All other stories from this viewpoint, only employ slight variations on these structures and mainly contextualise and relate it the story to a set of values but with the structure being pretty much the same. Now you don't have to agree with that since its the point of view of one academic however you can see the driving force behind structuralism is about breaking the plot down into its base ingredients.

Also, if a new-esque structure style is evident then there must be some sort of catalyst(this is where you could think about values).

 

[Jacquilen]

hey would you happen to know how the composers of TBS nd SBTS manipulate aspects of the genre to communicate meaning to the audience??
also what does it mean by meaning???

 

[kami]

hey would you happen to know how the composers of TBS nd SBTS manipulate aspects of the genre to communicate meaning to the audience??
also what does it mean by meaning???

meaning = stuff, ideas, thoughts, concepts, messages etc.

And by manipulating the genre they get a message across - for example, having a female detective(an 'unsuitable job for a woman') gives off a feminists commentary on the traditional gender roles in crime fiction (christie's female detective was domestic, most other writers used men).