Levi Strauss adapted Saussure's linguistic model into the social sciences through anthropology and studied cultures as texts to determine the universal and deep grammars of cultural mythologies. His structuralism is able to construct a model for the underlying structure of all the possible structures which not be directly analyzed by empirical observation. His version of structuralism seeks to define the common structural principles that include the logical and universal characteristics of the human mind. This idea of structure is unobservable, which means human beings are participants of this structure but they are unaware or unconscious of its influences.
In the structural study of myth he argues that if we could determine the underlying structure of the narrative, its constituent elements and the way that they are organized, then we are able to see that these myths are not meaningless sequences of events. Through his structural analysis we could see that myths are concerned with deep problems and they are logical in their underlying structures. They are sophisticated attempts to resolve the logical problems. Myths are highly and complexly structured, they confront contradictions and draw out patterns of relationships. The myths are various, but the basic structures are similar as a result of the universal characteristics of human mind that preserve the basic intellectual unity.
His structural theory is quite logical for the sake of a universalistic deep element, however I am going to question his theory by emphasizing the importance of social and geographical environment -as the constituent elements of culture- that the myth is created, and the role of the storyteller in an unconscious process of mind.
Reductionism(?)
Myths can only be defined and understood as part of a myth system. Thus, Levi Strauss analyses the myth system by searching for the underlying structure of relationships between the elements of the stories rather than looking at their contextuality to demonstrate the similarities between basic kinship structures in different cultures.
His interest with the mental structure which lies behind the myths he studied does not lead him to engage in empirical research. Myths' variety and complexity studied through the mental structure of the human mind so, could we interpret his structuralism of being reductionist? Does he reduce culture merely to a mental structure and negate the complexity and historical and social specificity? Then, what about the geographical and also historical determinants of culture, is it possible to draw such a rigid boundary between them?
He offers a detailed analysis of oedipal myth by examining those relationships from a structural point of view. His sample case works successfully, but this achievement works through the opposites, through binary oppositions. Therefore we could ask even if it is possible for us to reconstruct the myth by referring different and unsuitable features of the stories, without negating the contradictory elements or ideas of a universal mental structure. His analyze aims to make visible the hidden and unconscious mental structure that lead to occur myths observable to us. Although it impossible to understand the structures of myth beyond their social and historical contexts, Levi Strauss structuralism is somehow blind to the uncontrollable elements of the culture due to disregarding the importance of geography and history for the analysis of culture.
Role of the storyteller in an unconscious structure. Is this something possible(?)
Levi Strauss looks for a pattern which is present in all myths, regardless of who created them under which circumstances. Myths are the products of unconscious operators of the mind, ones of the teller is not aware. The individual teller does not create the basic pattern for producing the telling of the particular myth. we can only understand this basic pattern properly by seeing the way it is marked out across the whole range of myths.
The author of the myths are unaware operators of the structure of thought underlying the individual myths, but this might be problematic. The individual actors tell the myths as they do because of the nature of that structure, and then the meaning of the myth is something created by the system, where the teller's behaviors are shaped. The author of the myth is not someone who provides the principle of unity amongst them; and also s/he is not a center, so the meaning is originates from the system not from the individual.
In Levi Strauss view of structuralism the major element of cultural myth is the logical structure of the human mind. On the one hand this main determinant implements it power regardless of any social or historical context. On the other hand human agency is ignored easily as a result of the implemention of power regardless of the impacts of human agency to practice their meanings on the social world, and to desire to change the social world in different ways.
Both phonemic and kinship systems are the products of the structures of human mind. They are the products of the unconscious structure of the mind and operate on the basis of general laws. The mental structure imposes its power to the subjects who are unaware of what is happening, but who can still use them correctly. If the mental structure remains unconscious human agency is in fact left unaware of it, and thereby it will not be meaningful for her/him to talk about myths in empirical sense. But as Levi Strauss states that if we are able to analyze and then demonstrate the structural existence of relationships between cultural myths, then how can something observable be unconscious?
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