This document discusses structuralism as a literary movement. It began in the 1950s with Claude Levi-Strauss and views all human activities and products as being constructed rather than natural. Structuralism holds that meaning comes from relationships within a system or structure rather than from inherent qualities. A key idea is that language constructs our perception of reality rather than just describing it. The document outlines some of the key concepts of structuralism, including that signs are arbitrary and relational, and that structures determine how elements are positioned within a whole system.