Paper 5 EN10205 Thinking Theory Module 1 essay 3

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Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst. Prof, Baselius College, Kottayam

The Structural Study of Myth- Claude Levi-Strauss

Disclaimer: The notes are prepared by the author for circulation in the classroom alone.
They are compiled from various texts and e-sources and does not intend to violate copyright
acts.
Claude Levi-Strauss
• Claude Levi-Strauss was a French social anthropologist and a leading exponent of
structuralism.
• He started studying the “the rules by which a vast number of cultures regulated
marriage and kinship ties.” This study led Levi-Strauss to realize that in order to study
a culture in depth he must study their language. The study of language for Levi-
Strauss is to get into the study of the myth. “Myth gives an idea of deep belief of the
community.”
• He is often known as “the “father of modern anthropology” as he revolutionized the
world of social anthropology by implementing the methods of structuralist analysis
developed by Saussure in the field of cultural relations.
• Structuralism is an approach used to analyse culture. Structuralism developed by
Claude Levi-Strauss asserts that human culture, being the set of learned behaviours
and ideas that characterize a society, is just an expression of the underlying structures
of the human mind.
• For Levi Strauss and for Saussure, structuralist analysis offers a chance to discover
the "timeless universal human truths" so beloved of the humanist perspective, but
using a methodology that seems much more "objective" and "scientific." For Levi-
Strauss in particular, such universal human truths--what all humans share by virtue of
being human--exists at the level of structure.
• All signifying systems, all systems of cultural organization, share the same
fundamental structures, regardless of their particular content. So the motive for using
structuralist analysis is, in this sense, the same as the motive for using a humanist
perspective: to find out what we all have in common, or what is (as many of you have
asked) "the human condition." Poststructuralists, by contrast, reject the whole idea of
anything being universal or timeless or essentially "human".
What is the Levi Strauss theory?
Levi Strauss, a French anthropologist in the 1900s, proposed a theory of 'binary opposites'
which entails that the majority of narratives in media forms such as books and film contain
opposing main characters. These binary opposites help to thicken the plot and further the
narrative; and introduce contrast.
What is binary opposition?
Binary opposition is the system of language and/or thought by which two theoretical
opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. It is the contrast between two
mutually exclusive terms, such as on and off, up and down, left and right.
With his belief in structuralism, Levi-Strauss asserted that the human mind classifies things
through binary opposition, the contrasts between two opposite things. It is this binary
opposition that leads cultures to think in terms of good and bad.
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Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst. Prof, Baselius College, Kottayam

Now we move to the essay:

Before we move, I would like to say that "The Structural Study of Myth" is long and
complicated so a handout as this cannot hope to cover all the layers.
• "The Structural Study of Myth" published by Claude Levi-Strauss in the 1955 is one
of the most influential works in anthropology and structural analysis.
• In this article, Levi-Strauss discusses the manner in which anthropology should
approach the study of myths.
• Levi-Strauss uses some examples in "The Structural Study of Myth" to illustrate his
structural model of myth analysis and thus proves to be a guide to analysing
mythologies.
• At the opening of "The Structural Study of Myth" Levi-Strauss discusses an alleged
paradox in myths: on the one hand myths seem arbitrary in that that they do not abide
by any logic and anything can happen in a myth. On the other hand, Levi-Strauss
notes that many different cultures present similar myths, a fact which does not sit well
with the seemingly arbitrary nature of myths.
• According to Levi-Strauss, it is this contradiction that points the way in the direction
of the warranted methodology for the study of myth. While content varies in myth,
both across cultures and across times, structure remains the same and stays the same
in different cultures and times.
• Hence Levi-Strauss feels that the "deep structure" of the myth should be the object of
interest for anthropologists and the study of myth. Levi-Strauss is concerned the
underlying structure which exists in groups of myths and even all myths and not just
the content or the structure of a single myth.
• The basic premise of Levi-Strauss' "The Structural Study of Myth" is that myth
is like language, or rather is language.
• Myth is not only conveyed by language; it also functions like language in the manner
described by de-Saussure in “The Nature of the Linguistic Sign” (#) and his
differentiation between "langue" and "parole".
(#) a) The signifier does not point to an actual entity in the world, it points only to
the mental meaning called signified. When relating to the lingual sign what de
Saussure essentially does is to replace actual referential reality with the signified.
b) What the signifier points to is not something which exists outside of
language, but rather to a meaning which is contained within human consciousness.
c) The division between signifier and signified, which together compose
Saussure's lingual sign, is the basis for his subsequent proposition that everything
gains it meaning out of being in structural oppositional relations with other
components.
d) Linguistic sign is arbitrary. Different languages have different signs for the
same denotations. This means that language does not simply describe reality, but is in
fact something separate and autonomous from it. The meaning of a linguistic sign is
imposed on us by our conventions.
• One might suppose that myth is a subdivision of language (a specific form of using
language) but according to Levi-Strauss myth has its own characteristics which
distinguish it from its language and which make myth a language in itself.
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Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst. Prof, Baselius College, Kottayam

• According to Levi-Strauss a myth has its langue which is the synchronous

structure which enables the specific parole of a certain myth. While details may
vary from myth to myth, the structure remains the same.
• Levi-Strauss insists that myth is a language because it has to be told in order to exist.
He adds that langue belongs to what he calls “revisable time,” and parole belongs to
what he calls “non-revisable time.” Langue can exist in the past, present, and
future since it is the structure itself. Parole exists in linear time, that is that you
cannot turn the clock back.
• According to Levi-Strauss: “a myth is both ‘historically specific,’ that is it‘s always
set sometime long ago, and ‘ahistorical’ which is that it’s story is timeless. As
history, myth is parole; as timeless, it’s langue.”
• Levi-Strauss also says that in addition to langue and parole, myth exists in a third
level. This level proves that myth is a language of it’s own “and not just a subset
of language.” He says that myth “can be translated, reduced, paraphrased, expanded,
and manipulated without losing its basic shape or structure.”
• The special attribute of myth is revealed according to Levi-Strauss in the attempt to
translate a mythical narrative form one language to another. Unlike other form of
language, and especially poetry, which lose a lot in translation, myth retains its
capacities even when poorly translated. According to Levi-Strauss, this is due to the
nature of the structural components which make up a myth which are irreducible
and recurrent across myths.
• He thus argues that (myth), [….] is actually something different from language. “It
looks like language in its structure. “It operates on a higher, more complex level”.

Myth shares with language the following characteristics:

1. It's made of units that are put together according to certain rules.
2. These units form relations with each other, based on binary pairs or opposites,
which provide the basis of the structure.
Myth differs from language (as Saussure describes it) because:
1. the basic units of myth are not phonemes (the smallest unit of speech that
distinguishes one utterance from another, like a letter), morphemes (the smallest unit
of relatively stable meaning that can't be subdivided, like a non-compound word), or
sememes (the meaning expressed by a morpheme), or even signifiers and signifieds,
but rather are what Levi-Strauss calls "mythemes".
2. His process of analysis differs from Saussure's because Saussure was interested in
studying the relations between signs (or signifiers) in the structure of language,
whereas Levi-Strauss concentrates on sets of relations, rather than individual
relations--or what he calls "bundles of relations".
• These structural components of myths, which Levi-Strauss terms "mythemes"
are not important in themselves and have no intrinsic value but rather, much like the
nature of the linguistic sign according to de-Saussure, depend on their structural
alignment in order to gain meaning. Every mytheme receives its meaning form its
position in the myth and its relations with other mythemes.
• In "The Structural Study of Myth" Levi-Strauss is curious how different mythemes
group together and is reproduced as an underlying structure of myth.
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Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst. Prof, Baselius College, Kottayam

• The method Levi-Strauss suggests for the study of myth is supposed to address this
concern:
According to Levi-Strauss,
a) A myth should by analysed into its mythemes which are subsequently classified
and visually sorted in columns.
b) The horizontal axis of the mythemes chart represents diachronical development in
the myth.
c) The vertical column represents variations on the same subject.
d) A map of relations between mythemes thus received enables the anthropologist to
see both temporal and thematic relations.
e) By reading the myth with both these aspects taken together into account shall help
in deciphering the meaning of the myth.
• Claude Levi-Strauss uses the famous example of the myth of Oedipus to illustrate his
structural methodology for the study of myth. Coming to this point he introduces
another set of definitions. That is the definitions of chthonic and autochthonic.
These terms are crucial to Levi-Strauss's analysis of the Oedipus myth. Something is
‘chthonian’ if it lives in the ground; it's ‘autochthonian’ if it springs up out of the
ground or is somehow born from the ground.”
• Levi-Strauss “simply wish to illustrate (the Oedipus myth in) a certain technique.” He
is “trying out several arrangements of the mythemes (in a chart) until we find one
which is in harmony with the principles enumerated […].
• Let us suppose, […] that the best arrangement is as shown in Table 1 (p 433).” The
result is four vertical columns, “each of which includes several relations belonging to
the same bundle.
• Were we to tell the myth, we would disregard the columns and read the rows from left
to right and from top to bottom.
• But if we want to understand the myth, then we have to disregard one half of the
diachronic dimension (top to bottom) and read from left to right, column after
column, each one being considered a unit.”
• Levi-Strauss divides the different mythemes (structural units that make up the myth)
of the Oedipus myth into a chart that provides both diachronic and synchronic, both
syntagmatic and paradigmatic, representation of the structure of the myth.
• Each column in Levi-Strauss' chart of the Oedipus myth expresses variants of the
same theme and the development of the plot is represented by the relations between
the columns.
• This method enables Levi-Strauss to locate binary relations in the Oedipus myth. For
example, the first column in Levi-Strauss' chart has mythemes that represent the
attribution of high value to kinship relations/ overrating of blood relations (such as
Oedipus marries his mother) while events in the second column represent an
underrating/a downscaling of the family (Oedipus kills his father). The third column
refers to monsters being slain. As to the fourth, […] the remarkable connection of
the surnames in Oedipus’ father-line has often been noticed.” “The significance is no
longer to be sought in the eventual meaning of each name, but in the fact that all the
names have a common feature: all hypothetical meanings refer to difficulties in
walking straight and standing upright.” In his example of […] the Oedipus myth,
he begins to see-- in the synchronic bundles of relations-- certain patterns
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Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst. Prof, Baselius College, Kottayam

developing, which we might call ‘themes.’ One such theme is the idea of having
some problem walking upright.
Levi-Strauss sees it as an expression of a tension between the idea of chthonic
and autochthonic creation/ origin of man. […]

• This, to Levi-Strauss, is the significance of the myth: it presents certain structural

relations, in the form of binary oppositions/ contradictions, that are universal
concerns in all cultures. Since they appear in other cultures' mythologies and they
therefore represent a central issue for all cultures.
• Levi-Strauss' chart of the mythemes of the Oedipus myth find two sets of
contradiction which Levi-Strauss finds to be correlated. The validation of the
autochthonous theme is the devaluation of the family and kinship and vice-versa.
• According to Levi-Strauss in "The Structural Study of Myth" symbolic translation of
different issues is what makes up the myth in the first place and what enables it to
function. For example, a binary pair like life/death can be translated into a symbolic
pair of sky/earth and eventually find a symbol which unites the two, such as mist
(located between the sky and the earth and connects them). These relations should,
according to Levi-Strauss, the object of the study of myth.
• This structuralist reading might actually apply to literary interpretation as we know it.
Once you've found the mythemes, the constituent units, of a myth or story, and laid
them out in Levi-Strauss' pattern, you can interpret them in an almost infinite number
of ways.”
• Claude Levi-Strauss was heavily influenced by de-Saussure thoughts on the nature of
the linguistic sign. But while de-Saussure separated the synchronic from the
diachronic and focused his attention only on the former, Levi-Strauss hold that a
myth is not static, and the different times see different versions of the same myth.
• When one faces with multiple versions of the same myth one would naturally be
concerned with figuring out which is the "true" version.
• Levi-Strauss holds that there is no "correct" of "original" version of a myth and
that all versions are valid for study especially if studied together. This is because
that all versions of a myth, however different in their detail, represent the same
"deep structure" of the myth.
• The extraction of this deep structure of myth can be facilitated by the co-examining of
different version of the same myth.
• The contradictory aspects of myths:
a) In a myth anything can happen, you cannot predict the outcome or sequence of
events logically.
b) There also is a lack of continuity as any given number of characteristics can be
attributed to a character.
c) Relations between characters can spring up at short notice and so there is nothing
impossible in a myth
• The structural study of myth according to Levi-Strauss is able to make order out
of chaos by analysing variations on the structure of the myth. This, for example,
can serve to study the way a myth develops over time.
• For Levi-Strauss, a myth is the product of contradicting values which exist in
every culture.
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Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst. Prof, Baselius College, Kottayam

• Contradiction such as life and death are irreconcilable and humans are therefore
pushed to resolve the contradiction through its symbolic processing in the myth. The
myth works to symbolically resolve cultural contradictions through mediating symbol
chains. For example: the contradiction of life/death is translated into the contradiction
between agriculture and hunting, which is in turn translated in the myth into the
binary pair of herbivores and carnivores and the eventual mediating "in between"
symbol of the scavenger (a coyote or raven).
• Tracing the route of such symbolic transfigurations in the myth is the manner in
which Levi-Strauss believes that anthropology should proceed in the study of myth.
• “After laying out this basic method, Levi-Strauss goes on to talk about perfecting his
system to make it useful to anthropologists. We don't have to worry too much about
this section because the details he discusses aren't as relevant to the analysis of
literature as they are to anthropology” (Klages).
• “He concludes that the structural method of myth analysis brings order out of chaos,
as it provides a means to account for widespread variations on a basic myth structure,
and it "enables us to perceive some basic logical processes which are at the root of
mythical thought." This is important to Levi-Strauss because he wants to make the
study of myth logical and "scientific" in all its aspects, and not to have to rely on any
subjective interpretive factors” (Klages)”.
• “One might critique this view of Levi-Strauss' by pointing out that his own
explanations favour science over "myth," as he insists that his method of myth
analysis is scientific, and therefore better than other methods” (Klages).

Points to remember:
➢ Strauss argued that kinship relations which are fundamental aspects of any
society/cultural organizations represent a specific kind of structure.
➢ Strauss' theories about myth had considerable influence in the development of the
theory of narratology which is a further aspect of structuralism.
➢ Strauss insisted that myth is a language because myth has to be told in order to exist.
Moreover, a myth is almost always set some time long ago, with a timeless story.
➢ Myth is actually on a more complex level than language
➢ Myth as language, consists of both “Langue” & “Parole”.
➢ Levi-Strauss adds a new element to Saussure`s langue and parole, pointing out that
langue belongs to what he calls “reversible time” and parole to “non-reversible time”.
➢ Myth shares with language the following characteristics:
a) It is made of units that are put together according to certain rules.
b) These units form relationships with each other, based on opposition which provide
the basis of the structure.
➢ Saussure-Myth differs from language because the basic units of myth are NOT
Phonemes, Morphemes, seems, or even signifiers and signified but Rather are what
Levi-Strauss calls “Mythemes”
➢ Structural analysis can account for any version of a particular myth.
➢ To prove this point, Strauss goes into rather lengthy analysis of Oedipus myth, Zuni
myth and analyzes a Pueblo myth with a similar structure.
➢ Basically, Levi-Strauss' method is this.
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Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst. Prof, Baselius College, Kottayam

a) Take a myth.
b) Reduce it to its smallest component parts--its "mythemes."
c) Then lay these mythemes out so that they can be read both diachronically and
synchronically.
d)The story, or narrative, of the myth exists on the diachronic (left-to-right) axis, in
non-reversible time and the structure of the myth exists on the synchronic (up-and-
down) axis, in reversible time.
e) At this point one gets to see how this structuralist reading might actually apply to
literary interpretation as we know it.
f) Once the mythemes or the constituent units, of a myth or story have been found,
and laid out in Levi-Strauss' pattern, one can interpret them in an almost infinite
number of ways.
g) Levi-Strauss started by using studies of language to see how structure developed in
society. The richest source of that structure lied in the study of language and
mythology.
h) He wanted to know what makes mythology all over the world similar given that the
myth could contain anything—they aren’t bound to rules of accuracy, or possibility.
i) The structure of myth, and not the content, is what makes it so similar worldwide.
The content of myth can be of any possible or impossible event, but the “sameness” of
the myth lies in the structure which is almost the same world-wide.
➢ He concludes that the structural method of myth analysis brings order out if chaos.
➢ He wanted to make the study of myth logical and “scientific”, and not to have to rely
on any subjective interpretive factors.

Take away from the essay

➢ The idea of analyzing units in a structure in binary pairs.
➢ The idea that what's important in analyzing these binary pairs is the relation among
pairs, which can be expressed in algebraic formulae or in ratios: A is to B as C is to D.
➢ The idea of reversible and non-reversible time.
➢ The idea of reading a narrative structure (like a myth) as a two-dimensional structure
(rather than simply as linear, as Saussure says).
His other works he refers to in the essay:
The Raw and the Cooked, The Savage Mind, Structural Anthropology

Key Words:
* LANGUE: is a language system, a set of options or possibilities.
* PAROLE: is a particular utterance or statement.
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Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst. Prof, Baselius College, Kottayam

* DIACHRONIC: (over a period of time) a diachronic relationship is temporal; it's the

relationship a word or phrase or event might have with words or phrases or events that come
before or after it.
* SYNCHRONIC: (at a point of time) a synchronic relationship has nothing to do with time
or sequence; it's the relationship that a word or phrase or event might have with all other
words, phrases, or events in a language or a narrative.
* CHTHONIAN: something is "chthonian" if it lives in the ground.
*AUTOCHTHONIAN: it’s "autochthonian" if it springs up out of the ground or is somehow
born from the ground.
*MYTHEME: Each mytheme is usually one event or position in the story, the narrative, of
the myth.

References
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