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Republic of the Philippines
Department of Education
REGION III – CENTRAL LUZON
SCHOOLS DIVISION OFFICE OF NUEVA ECIJA
TALABUTAB NORTE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
TALABUTAB NORTE, GEN. M. NATIVIDAD, NUEVA ECIJA, 3125

English 10
Learning Activity Sheet
Quarter 3 Module 4
Critiquing Literary Selection Using Structuralism and Formalism Approach

Learning Competency: Critiquing literary selection using structuralism and formalism approach.
Learning Activities:
Activity 1: Structuralism: Read the questions carefully and answer based from the story above
“The Appearance of the Sorcerer” by Elias Canetti from The Tongue Set Free.
Activity 2. Directions: Formalism: Use the graphic organizer to evaluate the text content,
elements, features and properties of “The Appearance of the Sorcerer” by Elias Canetti from The
Tongue Set Free.

Structure or form is the arrangement of story elements according to purpose, style and
genre. Structure doesn’t just happen on its own. Rather, it is carefully considered by the author
to make sure their intended meaning is conveyed.
In order for a story to be truly immersive, the structure must play the part of a skeleton.
In other words, the structure supports the story to ensure the most powerful delivery of
elements, yet in a manner unseen and not easily identified by the reader.
“Structuralism” can be viewed as an extension of “Formalism” in that that both
“Structuralism” and “Formalism” devoted their attention to matters of literary form (i.e.
structure) rather than social or historical content; and that both bodies of thought were intended
to put the study of literature on a scientific, objective basis. “Structuralism” relied initially on the
ideas of the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure. Like Plato, Saussure regarded the signifier
(words, marks, symbols) as arbitrary and unrelated to the concept, the signified, to which it
referred.
“Formalism” is, as the name implies, an interpretive approach that emphasizes literary
form and the study of literary devices within the text. The work of the Formalists had a general
impact on later developments in “Structuralism” and other theories of narrative. “Formalism,”
like “Structuralism,” sought to place the study of literature on a scientific basis through objective
analysis of the motifs, devices, techniques, and other “functions” that comprise the literary work.
Structuralism
In literary theory, structuralism is an approach analyzing the narrative material by
examining the underlying invariant structure. For example, a literary critic applying a
structuralist literary theory might say that the authors of the West Side Story did not write
anything "really" new, because their work has the same structure as Shakespeare's Romeo and
Juliet. In both texts, a girl and a boy fall in love (a "formula" with a symbolic operator between
them would be "Boy + Girl") despite the fact that they belong to two groups that hate each other
("Boy's Group - Girl's Group" or "Opposing forces") and conflict is resolved by their death.
The versatility of structuralism is such that a literary critic could make the same claim
about a story of two friendly families ("Boy's Family + Girl's Family") that arrange a marriage
between their children despite the fact that the children hate each other ("Boy - Girl") and then
the children commit suicide to escape the arranged marriage; the justification is that the second
story's structure is an 'inversion' of the first story's structure: the relationship between the
values of love and the two pairs of parties involved have been reversed.
Structuralistic literary criticism argues that the "novelty value of a literary text" can lie
only in new structure, rather than in the specifics of character development and voice in which
that structure is expressed. One branch of literary structuralism, like Freudianism, Marxism,
and transformational grammar, suggest both a deep and a surface structure. In a Freudian
literary interpretation, the literary text is based on the deep structure grounded in the life and
death instincts; the Marxist reading will interpret the conflict between classes in the text as
rooted in the deep structure of the economic "base."
 It recognizes that the significance of each word within a text is determined by internal
as well as external factors; i.e. historical, biographical and cultural contexts.
 Structuralist critics analyzed material by examining underlying structures, such as
characterization or plot, and attempted to show how these patterns were universal and could
thus be used to develop general conclusions about both individual works and the systems from
which they emerged.
 Structuralism regarded language as a closed, stable system, and by the late 1960s it
had given way to post structuralism.
Formalism
Formalism viewed literature as a distinct and separate entity, unconnected to historical or
social causes or effects. It analyzed literature according to devices unique to literary works and
focused on the “literariness” of a text: words were not simply stand-ins for objects but objects
themselves. Formalists advanced the concept of defamiliarization, arguing that literature, by
calling attention to itself as such, estranged the reader from ordinary experience and made the
familiar seem new. Formalism’s tendency to collapse form and content is somewhat similar to
New Criticism’s approach, though its main influence was on structuralism.
 It refers to critical approaches that analyze, interpret, or evaluate the inherent features
of a text.
 Its features include not only grammar and syntax but also literary devices such as
meter and tropes.
 This approach reduces the importance of a text’s historical, biographical, and cultural
context.

Directions. Read the excerpt “The Appearance of the Sorcerer” by Elias Canetti from The Tongue
Set Free. Then answer the guide questions in Activities 1 and 2.

I could tell how much I had changed by my grandfather’s visits. He came to Zurich only
when he knew I was alone. The tension between him and Mother must have grown; for several
years he avoided her, but they corresponded regularly. During the war, he received postcards
telling him our new addresses; later, they exchanged formal and impersonal letters.
No sooner did he know that I was at the Yalta than he showed up in Zurich. He got a
room at the Hotel Central and asked me to come by. His hotel rooms, whether in Vienna or
Zurich, all looked alike, the same smell prevailed in all of them. He was wrapped up in his
phylacteries, reciting the evening prayers, when I arrived; while kissing me and bathed in tears,
he continued praying. He pointed to a drawer, which I was to open in his stead; inside lay a thick
envelope of stamps, which he had gathered for me. I emptied the envelope on the lower bureau
and examined them, some I had, some I didn’t have, he kept a watchful eye on the expressions of
my face, which revealed delight or disappointment to him in rapid alternation. Unwilling to
interrupt his prayer, I said nothing, he couldn’t stand it and interrupted the solemn tone of his
Hebrew words himself with an interrogative: “Well?” I emitted a few inarticulate, enthusiastic
sounds; that satisfied him, and he went on with hisprayers. They took a fairly long time,
everything was established, he skipped nothing and shortened nothing; since it proceeded at
maximum speed anyhow, nothing could be accelerated. Then he was done, he tested me to see
whether I knew the countries from which the stamps came, and he showered me with praise for
every right answer. It was as if I were still in Vienna and only ten years old, I found it as
bothersome as his tears of joy, which were flowing again. He wept as he spoke to me, he was
overwhelmed at finding me still alive, his grandson and namesake, grown a bit more, and
perhaps he was also overwhelmed at being still alive himself and being able to have this
experience.
As soon as he was done testing me and had wept himself out, he took me to a non-
alcoholic restaurant, where “restaurant daughters” waited on tables. He had an eager eye for
them and it was impossible for him to order anything without a detailed conversation. He began
by pointing to me and saying: “My little grandson.” Then he totted up all the languages he knew,
there were still seventeen. The “restaurant daughter,” who had things to do, listened impatiently
to the tally, which didn’t include Swiss German; as soon as she tried to get away, he put a
propitiating hand on her hip and let it lie there. I was embarrassed for him, but the girl stood
still; when he was done with his languages and I raised my bowed head again, his hand was still
in the same place. He took it away only when he started ordering, he had to confer with the
“restaurant daughter,” which required both hands; after a long procedure, he wound up ordering
the same as always, a yogurt for himself and coffee for me. When the waitress was gone, I tried
talking to him: I said this wasn’t Vienna, Switzerland was different, he couldn’t act like that,
someday a waitress might slap him. He didn’t answer, he felt he knew better. When the waitress
returned with yogurt and coffee, she gave him a friendly smile, he thanked her emphatically, put
his hand on her hip again, and promised to stop by on his next visit to Zurich. I wolfed down my
coffee just to get away as fast as possible, convinced, all appearances notwithstanding, that he
had insulted her.
I was incautious enough to tell him about the Yalta, he insisted on visiting me there and
announced his coming. Fräulein Mina wasn’t at home, Fräulein Rosy received him. She took him
through the house and the garden, he was interested in everything and asked countless
questions. At every fruit tree, he asked how much it yielded. He asked about the girls who lived
here, their names, backgrounds, and ages. He counted them up, there were nine, and he said
that more could be put up in the house. Fräulein Rosy said that almost each one had her own
room, and now he wanted to see the rooms. She, carried away by his cheeriness and his
questions, innocently took him into each room. The girls were in town or in the hall, Fräulein
Rosy saw nothing wrong with showing him the empty bedrooms, which I had never seen. He
admired the view and tested the beds. He estimated the size of each room and felt that a second
bed could easily be added. He had retained the countries of the girls and he wanted to know
where the French girl, the Dutch girl, the Brazilian girl, and especially the two Swedish girls
slept. Finally, he asked about the sparrow’s nest, Fräulein Mina’s studio. I had forewarned him
that he would have to look at the paintings very carefully and praise some of them. He did that
in his way: like a connoisseur, he first halted at some distance from a picture, then approached
it andattentively studied the brush strokes. He shook his head at so much expertise and then
broke into enthusiastic superlatives, while having enough cunning to use Italian words, which
Fräulein Rosy understood, instead of Ladino words. He knew some of the flowers from his garden
at home, tulips, carnations, and roses, and he asked Fräulein Rosy to convey his congratulations
to the painter on her expertise: he had never seen anything like it before, he said, which was
true, and he asked whether she also painted fruit trees and fruit. He regretted that none were to
be seen and he ardently recommended an expansion of her repertoire. He thus stunned both of
us, neither Fräulein Rosy nor I had ever thought of it. When he began asking about the cost of
the paintings, I glared at him, but futilely. He stuck to his guns, Fräulein Rosy drew out a list
from the last exhibition and informed him of the prices. There were a few that had been sold for
several hundred francs, smaller ones were less, he had her give him all the prices in a row,
instantly added them up in his head, and surprised us with the handsome sum, which neither of
us had known. Then he grandly threw in that it didn’t matter, the important thing was the
beauty, la hermosura, of the paintings, and when Fräulein Rosy shook her head because she
didn’t understand the word, he swiftly interrupted me before I could translate it and he said in
Italian: “La bellezza, la bellezza, la bellezza!“.
Then he wanted to see the garden again, this time more thoroughly. In the tennis court,
he asked how large the grounds belonging to the house were. Fräulein Rosy was embarrassed,
for she didn’t know; he was already measuring the tennis court with his paces, the length and
the width, he had already computed the number of square meters, blurted it out, and: reflected a
bit. He compared the size of the tennis court with the size of the garden and also with the size of
the adjacent meadow, made a shrewd face, and told us how big the lot was. Fräulein Rosy was
overwhelmed, the visit, which I had so feared, was a triumph. For the early evening, he took me
to a performance in the Wald theater over the Dolder. When I came home, the ladies were
waiting for me in their room. FräuleinMima couldn’t forgive herself for being away, for an hour I
heard them sing Grandfather’s praises. He had even figured out the size of the grounds correctly,
a true sorcerer.

Activity 1: Structuralism: Read the questions carefully and answer based from the story above
“The Appearance of the Sorcerer” by Elias Canetti from The Tongue Set Free.
1. What themes or patterns are constantly repeated in the story?
2. How does this relate to culture as a whole?
3. How is theme related to the setting of the story?
4. How do the author’s used of figures of speech affect the meaning of the story?
5. How does the story create and resolve the conflict?

Activity 2: Formalism: Use the graphic organizer to evaluate the text content, elements, features
and properties of “The Appearance of the Sorcerer” by Elias Canetti from The Tongue Set Free.