Structuralism is an approach used to analyze culture by examining underlying structures. It was developed by Claude Levi-Strauss, who asserted that human culture is an expression of structures in the human mind. Structuralism examines recurring patterns and attempts to understand works in the context of the systems that produce them. It views culture as a system of ideas and seeks to understand myths, kinship structures, and other cultural elements through structural analysis.

1. STRUCTURALIS
M
By:
Nimra Anwar(006)
Muqaddas
Rafique(008)
Khansa Rizvi
(024)

2. CONTENT
 Introduction
 Origin
 Definition
 Claude Levi-Strauss Introduction
 Major Ideas
 Features of Structuralism
 Function
 Conclusion

3. INTRODUCTION
 Structuralism is an approach used to analyze culture.
Developed by Claude Levi-Strauss, it asserts that human
culture, being the set of learned behaviors and ideas that
characterize a society, is just an expression of the
underlying structures of the human mind.

4. ORIGIN
 Structuralism first comes to prominence as a
specific discourse with the work of a Swiss
linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, who
developed a branch of linguistics called
"Structural Linguistics."
 Claude Levi-Strauss is the Father of
Structuralism.

5. DEFINITION
 In literary theory, structuralism challenged the
belief that a work of literature reflected a given
reality; instead, a text was constituted of
linguistic conventions and situated among
other texts. Structuralism regarded language
as a closed, stable system, and by the late
1960s it had given way to poststructuralism.

6. Claude Levi-Strauss Introduction
 He was a French social anthropologist and a
leading exponent of structuralism.
 Often known as “the “father of modern
anthropology".
 He implemented the methods of structuralist
analysis developed by Saussuro in the field of
cultural relations.

7. IDEAS BY CLAUDE
 The study that brought prominence to him as mentioned earlier
was regarding Kinship. Strauss elucidated on the fact that the
essential structure of kinship, on which all the systems are
discovered are the set of four types of organically linked
relationships: brother-sister, husband-wife, father-son, and
mother’s brother-sister’s son.
 According to him, it was not decency or empathy which formed
these elements but mere consciousness. Hence, human nature
forces us to take the actions we do. He believed that all societies
followed these structures but his critics never agreed with him
sighting his work is less empirical than required.
 Amongst one of his most salient work is his study of Myths.
Strauss compares or rather declares Myth to be a separate logic.
He states that though Myths are usually are absurd logically, they
are very similar and persistent in almost every culture.

8. FEATURES OF
STRUCTURALISM
Some major key features of structuralism are as
under:
 Structuralism attempts to analyze world as a
production of ideas.
 It assumes that the world has a logical
pattern.
 There is death of the subject, that is, the
individual in structural analyses is dead.

9. FUNCTION
The structuralist school emerges from theories of language
and linguistics, and it looks for underlying elements in
culture and literature that can be connected so that critics can
develop general conclusions about the individual works and
the systems from which they emerge.

10. CONCLUSION
 Structuralism had a passing influence on
anthropology and a perhaps greater and more
lasting influence on the humanities.
 •Culture is seen as a system of ideas (so it is
an idealist paradigm, not
 materialistic).
 •The “father” of structuralism, and its foremost
exponent, is Claude Levi Strauss.