Myth and Meaning: A Paradigmatic Analysis of Galdós' Fortunata y Jacinta (PDF)

Chapter 1 STRUCTURALISM (p. 1)

Overview of Structuralism

The objective of this study is to provide a paradigmatic structuralist analysis of Galdós` Fortunata v Jacinta, published in 1887.1 This novel resists interpretation not only because it is made up of a richly-textured matrix of signs that has multiple symbolic levels, but also because its length adds to its complexity.

The paradigmatic structuralist method approaches understanding by affirming that the text is a meaningful totality or system of signs. For a text may be thought of as an autonomous semiological construct comprised of a system of signs distributed in definite ways, and having specific functions.

The meaning of the novel derives from the contrastive relationships of the constituent elements of signification. By selecting signs out of sequence for these contrasts and for the formation of models, this study is paradigmatic, it differs from the syntagmatic structural studies implemented by formalists and semiologists that are based on the string of the sentence.

Key ideas of Claude Lévi-Strauss1 anthropological structuralism serve as an interpretive resource for an understanding of this novel. Lévi-Strauss` notions about the languages of the cultures of real societies, such as the structures of kinship, totemism, mythology and other representations shaped by the mind, provide tools for interpreting the symbolic systems of the fictive society.

The two-phase procedure of the decomposition and subsequent paradigmatic reconstruction of models that reveal the underlying structures of surface phenomena, also are adopted from Lévi-Strauss and implemented in this study.

The analysis orders the signs into models that reflect the mechanisms of myths in the presentation of the data, and interprets findings within the context of the function of myths—which is to solve on mental levels irresoluble social paradoxes.

Also in keeping with Lévi-Strauss1

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