Trying to Understand Saussure

The statement that I felt I understood the most from Saussure's article read, " Signs function, then, not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position." Personally, I think that what Saussure meant by this was that words by themselves do not have a built-in meaning. We cannot give a particular word any certain value and meaning all on its own. We must therefore, compare words with other words, and through this means, obtain a certain sense of value by what the word is and is not. Because a word by itself is completely without meaning, it must be placed in a positive or negative position, so that we can compare it with other words, and as a result gain its meaning and value. When a particular word such as "tall" is stated, we are able to identify it and know its meaning, because we know what it means to be "short." If we didn't know what "short" looked like or meant, we could not identify the word "tall." The word "tall" is only given its meaning through comparison with other things that it is not. The word "tall" does not possess a built-in meaning all on its own. All words maintain a relative position with other words in a given language. According to Saussure, words being compared with their opposites, in order to gain access to their meaning, is very beneficial, because it allows us to gain a better understanding of the word's ultimate value and usage in language. However, post-structuralism, in contrast to structuralism and Saussure's view, believes that the meaning of a word is never fully complete or stable. In fact, post- structuralism believes that taking a word and comparing it to its opposite, does not aid a word's meaning, but instead complicates it- ruining the meaning of the word. Meanings are never stable, and can assume different values. Therefore, everything Saussure stated about gaining a word's meaning and function through its relative position with other opposing words, is completely complicated and opposed by post-structuralism. I think it is safe to say that structuralism and post-structuralism are at war with one another.

Response to Dr. Craig

To start off, I really just want to say that I enjoyed reading Dr. Craig's post. It really helped me understand some key concepts about Marxism that can be applied to everyday life, even when you least expect it. One thing in particular that really grabbed me about Dr. Craig's post was the part in which he described the Communist Manifesto leaning toward a pair of trendy jeans in a fashionable store. Oftentimes, strolling through the mall myself, I instantly realized that this particular marketing tool sounded very familiar to me. There have been multiple times where I go out to shop and run into Communist symbols or icons on T-shirts and posters. As Dr. Craig stated in his post, one of the most familiar of all has to be Che Guevara. Che Guevara has become a consumer sensation from T-shirts to books to movies to posters. On T-shirts he is hailed as an icon symbolizing revolutionary change and radical ideas, therefore appealing to the masses as a distant hero. Dr. Craig asserted that the masses are tricked into purchasing these items, as a form of rebellion, and as a result the ruling class profit from the working class struggle. I found this particular idea very interesting, and it made me think about the type of person the ruling class aim at targeting. I have noticed that the only stores, in which Che Guevara T-shirts or other similar items are sold at, happen to be stores such as Hot Topic, Walmart or Target. All of these stores pride themselves on discounted prices, where you can find the best (or should I say cheapest) price in town for whatever it is you're looking for. With that said, it might be assumed that these particular stores reach out to the working class people--keeping the working man's best interest at heart. More expensive stores, that the wealthier are known to shop at, such as Ralph Lauren, Gucci, or Anthropology, do not sell Che Guevara T-shirts. Although stores such as Walmart aim at saving the working individual more money with discounted prices, the people in charge of running the multi-million dollar corporation belong to the ruling class. As a result, by Walmart selling more Che Guevara T-shirts to the working class population, the ruling class in turn benefit, while at the same time appearing to do the working man a favor ( Che Guevara T-shirts 40% off original sale price). It is exactly in this instance that the ruling class assume hegemonic control over the ideas that reach society. At the same time, everything that Che Guevara stood for as a communist icon is tainted and destroyed by corporate America, which further emphasizes the silencing of the working class by the ruling class above them. To end on my reflection of Dr. Craig's post, I wanted to ask some questions. Why does the ruling class merely assume that the working class will keep quiet? Because the ruling class is implanting radical icons such as Che Guevara who fought for the oppressed, in the working class' minds, do they not feel partially threatened by the working class people?

Marxist Criticism vs. the Liberal Humanist Perspective

While Marxist criticism emphasizes the idea that socio-economic status and the ideology of a given culture greatly influence a writer's literary work, one of the ten tenets of liberal humanism claims that a text embodies its own meaning and is not dependent on outside forces. According to Marxism, an individual is constantly shaped by outside forces, one of the strongest being their social class. Although an individual may be unaware of the hold that their social class has on them as a person, it may be unintentionally seen through their writing on the basis of content, style, diction, syntax, and dialect. In contrast to this idea, one of the ten tenets of liberal humanism says that a text does not have to be put in any particular context- We do not have to look to the writer for hidden meanings, because the literary work demonstrates the height of its value and meaning all by itself. Personally I do not agree with this particular tenet of liberal humanism, and tend to fall more toward the idea of Marxist criticism when it comes to reading and analyzing a text. With my experience studying Literature so far I have always felt as though the writer of a certain work makes a major, personal imprint on what he or she is writing, whether it be big or small. Before I start reading a certain literary work I always like to read the author's biography beforehand, so that I can get a sense of where the writer is coming from. Although sometimes the author's life may have little to no relevance concerning the content of the text, the author's identity behind the text is still declared in the words he or she wrote, and is therefore a significant angle of looking at the text and its meaning. I think that a writer's social class is reflective in his or her own personal writing style. For example, a writer who comes from an upper-middle class may choose different diction to describe an object than would a writer who comes from a lower class. One particular literary work that I believe demonstrates the affect that outside forces have on a writer's writing is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath's own personal life and the social class she belonged to are significant factors consistent within the novel. In the novel, the main character, Esther Greenwood, experiences a breakdown as she interns for a fashion magazine in New York City. The fact that the character in her novel is a college student on internship, is an aspect that validates the character's own social class in society, as well as the writer who produced the work. Because The Bell Jar was highly autobiographical, looking toward the writer's life as one who was raised in the upper-middle class and had the opportunity to receive a good education, allows the readers of the text to gain a more insightful sense of the given character at hand. In all, I intently agree with the Marxist view, because outside forces are the genuine base of an individual's personality and writing style.

Theory

My blog for this semester will reflect my ideas and assumptions concerning different aspects of theory. I hope to use this blog in order to gain a better insight of the different theories we will be discussing in class. While I am aware of some types of theory, such as Feminist and Marxist criticism, I have never been introduced to others such as Psychoanalytic or Postcolonial criticism. Because of my ignorance concerning these theories, my hopeful vision for this blog is that by the end of the semester I will be able to have a strong hold on what these theories mean, and also be able to explain and argue certain points the theories maintain in my own writing. Once I am able to fully understand these different theories, I hope to incorporate them in my writing, so that I may strengthen my ideas and overall argument--This blog will help me with exactly that. My initial thoughts concerning "theory" is that it allows people to approach a text critically in regard to unstable characteristics such as socioeconomic status or gender. For instance, the Feminist theory approaches certain texts in light of socially constructed concepts such as patriarchy, which infers male domination. I find it interesting that a particular theory can be applied to a certain text, and as a result reveal underlying messages within the work. Theories allow us to dig deeper into the meaning of the text, so that we can analyze the work from a different approach. I think that theories are very useful when it comes to critically analyzing and dissecting the meaningful components of a text, in order to gain a better understanding of the author's purpose. I am personally looking forward to learning about the different theories, as well as the opportunity to incorporate their ideas and points in my own writing for this blog.