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  • Writer's pictureViola

Functionalism & Structuralism

Introduction

As myths have been around for a long time, many different interpretations and 'tools' have been created to try to unpick them and analyse them or to discover their true meaning. Two of the most popular ones are functionalism and structuralism.


Functionalism

First created by Bronisaw Malinowsk (1884 to 1942)


Malinowski, an important figure in the human sciences made tremendous advances critical figure in anthropology. Malinowski studied the cultures nearby him, and noticed that they told stories and that these stories got repeated over and over, and that they took place at certain kinds of critical times. There were moments when mythic stories were turned to in the society and they had a, a central role in the building of culture. More importantly, Malinowski noticed that there was a specific way that these stories were used by the cultures. Specifically, Malinowski said that when cultures tell myths to themselves what they're doing is legitimizing underlying social and cultural norms that they hold dear.

So we enjoy hearing myths because they have this underlined kind of subterranean function to them. They serve a purpose. To reassure us that our cultural norms and our social values are the right ones. So origin is not important when it comes to functionalism. Instead, the use of the myth in the time the myth is being told, that's what the functionalist is most interested in. Interested in function. Thus the name.


Structuralism

First noted by Claude Levi-Strauss (1908 to 2009)


What the structuralists are interested in is (obviosuly) the structures of things. All human culture is the product of the mind and so reflects it. We work off of opposite binaries; pairing opposites like yes and no, on and off to structure our basic understanding of the world.

Everything else is added on top as an extra-

Eg. when we are little sometimes there is mum, sometimes there is not.

This is a core binary that we learn when we are little.


Our myths at their core have some binary opposition that is driving them forward. For example, in the Odyssey a big theme is the question of what is food and what is not food- Polyphemus tries to eat Odysseus and his men and this outrages us because he is crossing the human boundary of what we believe is food, bringing where we draw this line into question. When we are reading what is food and what is not food, we were doing a structuralist reading.


Structuralists want to find out from a myth;

  • which aspects, which parts of the narrative reflect one theme and which parts of the narrative reflect the opposite theme

  • a myth will have a meaning, not in so far as its particular details give us some complex expression of some cultural forum, but instead, in the relationships among these details. So, for example, its not what is being eaten and what is not its the distinction between them.

  • Instead, what they claim is that human beings tend to put the same pairs in opposition from culture to culture to culture

However, what counts as a structuralist binary pair?


Something that is anchored in some biological part of being a human being- something anchored in basic fundamental human experience at a level of our biological cells. So for example, things like food and not food. Along with:

  • Habitat, reproduction, relationships

  • Sometimes there is some grey area and some confusion; this is where anxiety is created which is filled in by a story.

  • When people get nervous, they talk. The same thing is happening according to a structuralist when myths are being created. When we're getting nervous about whether the distinction between food and not food could really actually be one where there's a lot of grey area, we start telling stories about places where that grey area is being exhibited, and that, yes, indeed, it gets overcome, and we get reminded of the importance of keeping these two things separate. 

To read a myth like a structuralist, one must:

  • Take out the narrative

  • Try to find columns that line up and opposites; the least remainders possible

  • The key to a myth is a binary pair of oppositions.

  • A conversation about which binary is the most fundamental is the way we evaluate how a structuralist reading works.

Conclusion

These theories can be used to analyse any type of myth, modern or ancient and are interesting interpretations to look at a story from a different point of view. So next time you read a myth, why not try to apply structuralism or functionalism?


Until next time,

Viola and Zoe

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