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Contrast or Differences Between Structuralism and Post

Structuralism sees language as a stable system with definite meanings that can be deciphered, while post-structuralism sees literature as plural with no single meaning. Post-structuralism shifts emphasis from centered to decentered structures, questioning unifying centers. It began in the late 1960s through thinkers like Barthes, Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault. Post-structuralism attempts to break down basic structures into underlying structures and questions confidence in scientific methods.

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587 views

Contrast or Differences Between Structuralism and Post

Structuralism sees language as a stable system with definite meanings that can be deciphered, while post-structuralism sees literature as plural with no single meaning. Post-structuralism shifts emphasis from centered to decentered structures, questioning unifying centers. It began in the late 1960s through thinkers like Barthes, Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault. Post-structuralism attempts to break down basic structures into underlying structures and questions confidence in scientific methods.

Uploaded by

Adeel Raza
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Contrast or Differences between Structuralism and Post-

structuralism

Post-Structuralism which is often used synonymously with Deconstruction is a reaction to structuralism and
works against seeing language as a stable, closed system. It is a shift from seeing the poem or novel as a
closed entity, equipped with definite meanings which it is the critic's task to decipher, to seeing literature as
irreducibly plural, an endless play of signifiers which can never be finally nailed down to a single center,
essence, or meaning.

Post-structuralism is a shift of emphasis from centered to decentered structures or from the centres to the
margins. The shift from structuralism to post-structuralism began in the late 1960s, and can be detected in
the writings of Barthes, who eventually questioned his own search for the structures underlying literature;
Jacques Derrida, who `undid' structuralist texts by applying a kind of metacriticism, claiming to show that
there were no governing structures; Jacques Lacan `with his systematic assault on the idea of a centred
and unified self ; and Michel Foucault `with his abandonment of the idea of a single and continuous history
of mankind. All share a suspicion of `centred' thought.

Post-structuralist approaches attempt to show that even so-called basic structures can be broken down into
further underlying structures, and that the unifying centres themselves can be broken down. All that
remains is a free play of relationships between signs.

Peter Barry points out the following are some of the differences and distinctions between structuralism and
post-structuralism in his Beginning Theory.

1.Origins Structuralism derives ultimately from linguistics. Linguistics is a discipline which has always
been inherently confident about the possibility of establishing objective knowledge. It believes that if we
observe accurately, collect data systematically, and make logical deductions then we can reach reliable
conclusions about language and the world. Structuralism inherits this confidently scientific outlook:it too
believes in method, system,and reason as being able to establish reliable truths.

By contrast, post-structuralism derives ultimately from philosophy.Philosophy is a discipline which has


always tended to emphasise the difficulty of achieving secure knowledge about things.This point of view is
encapsulated in Nietzsche’s famous remark ‘there are no facts,only interpretations’.Philosophy is,so to
speak,skeptical by nature and usually undercuts and questions commonsensical notions and assumptions.Its
procedures often begin by calling into question what is usually taken for granted as simply the way things
are. Post-structuralism inherits this habit of skepticism,and intensifies it.It regards any confidence in the
scientific method as naive, and even derives a certain masochistic intellectual pleasure from knowing for
certain that we can’t know anything for certain, fully conscious of the irony and paradox which doing this
entails.

2.Tone and style Structuralist writing tends towards abstraction and generalization: it aims for a
detached, ‘scientific coolness’ of tone. Given its derivation from linguistic science,this is what we would
expect. And essay like Roland Barthes’s1966 piece ‘Introduction to the structural analysis of
narrative’(reprinted in Image,Music,Text,ed.Stephen Heath,1977)is typical of this tone and treatment,with
its discrete steps in an orderly exposition, complete with diagrams. The style is neutral and anonymous, as
is typical of scientific writing.

Post-structuralist writing, by contrast, tends to be much more emotive.Often the tone is urgent and
euphoric,and the style flamboyant and self-consciously showy.Titles may well contain puns and
allusions,and often the central line of the argument is based on a pun or a word-play of some kind.

Often deconstructive writing fixes on some ‘material’ aspect of language,such as a metaphor used by a
writer or the etymology of a word.Overall it seems to aim for an engaged warmth rather than detached
coolness.

3.Attitude to language Structuralists accept that the world is constructed through language,in the sense
that we do not have access to reality other than through the linguistic medium.All the same,it decides to
live with that fact and continue to use language to think and perceive with.After all,language is an orderly
system,not a chaotic one ,so realizing our dependence upon it need not induce intellectual despair.

By contrast,post-structuralism is much more fundamentalist in insisting upon the consequences of the view
that,in effect,reality itself is textual.Post-structurslism develops what threaten to become terminal anxieties
about the possibility of achieving any knowledge through language.The verbal sign,in its view,is constantly
floating free of the concept it is supposed to designate.Thus,the post-structuralist’s way of speaking about
language involves a rather obsessive imagery based on liquids-signs float free of what they
designate,meanings are fluid, and subject to constant ‘slippage’ or ‘spillage’.This linguistic liquid,sloppling
about and swilling over unpredictably,defies our attempts to carry signification carefully from ‘giver’ to
‘receiver’ in the containers we call words.We are not fully in control of the medium of language,so meanings
can not be planted in set places,like somebody planting a row of potato seeds;they can only be randomly
scattered or ‘disseminated’,like the planter walking along and scattering seed with broad sweeps of the
arm,so that much of it lands unpredictably or drifts in the wind.

4.Project By ‘project’ here I mean the fundamental aims of each movement,what it is they want to
persuade us of.Structuralism,firstly,questions our way of structuring and categorising reality,and prompts
us to break free of habitual modes of perception or categorization,but it believes that we can thereby attain
a more reliable view of things.

Post-structuralism is much more fundamental: it distrusts the very notion of reason,and the idea of the
human being as an independent entity, preferring the notion of the ‘dissolved’ or ‘constructed’ subject,
whereby what we may think of as the individual is really a product of social and linguistic forces that is,not
an essence at all,merely a ‘tissue of textualities’. Thus, its torch of skepticism burns away the intellectual
ground on which the Western civilization is built.

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