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Richard L. W. Clarke LITS3304 Notes 11B
TZVETAN TODOROV "STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVE" (1969)
"Structural Analysis of Narrative." Novel 3 (1969): 70-76.
Here, Todorov declares that the goal of the structural analysis of narrative is not the
description of a concrete work of art in and for itself: the work is, rather, "considered as
the manifestation of an abstract structure, merely one of its possible reiterations" (70).
Structural analysis is, as such, a theoretical rather than a merely descriptive approach. It
is also, however, an "internal approach" (70), that is, it does not seek to relate the literary
work to something external to language. For example, Marxism and Psychoanalysis seek
to relate the work to an "abstract structure, social or psychic, which manifests itself
through that work" (70). However, if Structuralism seeks to relate the work to an abstract
structure of some kind, it seeks to do so in relation to a properly linguistic structure.
Indeed, Todorov argues that "literature must be understood in its specificity, as literature,
before we seek to determine its relation to anything else" (71). Structural analysis, in
short, is not "satisfied by a pure description of the work nor by its interpretation in terms
that are psychological or sociological or, indeed, philosophical" (70). It seeks not a
"rational resume of the concrete work" (71) but to understand the literary properties of
individual works as "particular instances that have been realized" (71) of a given set of
rules, that is, as the parole of an underlying langue. Todorov argues that Structuralist
narratology implies to some degree an inductive approach:
in practice, structural analysis will also refer to real works: the best stepping
stone towards theory is that of precise, empirical knowledge. But such
analysis will discover in each work what it has in common with others
(studies of genres, of periods, for example), or even with all other works
(theory of literature). . . . [I]t is always a question of going continually back
and forth, from abstract literary properties to individual works and vice
versa. (71)
Todorov is not shy about his goal, in so doing: that of effecting a "propaedeutic for a future
science of literature" (my emphasis; 71). He points out that to focus on the intrinsic
properties of the work in this way constitutes a more objective approach than any other
critical approach. If there are still elements of subjectivism that inhere in this approach,
Todorov asserts, this is no disgrace because no natural or human science is devoid of all
traces of subjective bias.
Todorov argues that the proper focus of structural analysis is plot. Todorov points
out that the minimal complete plot consists of a movement from one state of equilibrium
through a state of disequilibrium to a final state of equilibrium that is similar to, but not
the same as, the first state of equilibrium. Traditionally, narrative was analysed according
to theme and rhetoric, that is, attention was paid to what the text is about and the diction
deployed to that end. Instead, Todorov wants to propose a form of analysis that focuses
on the syntax of narrative, that is, one that zeroes in on the syntagmatic axis of the
utterance (parole) that is a particular narrative. The goal of all this is to understand the
workings of plot in general (this would be the langue underlying all plots) and to
differentiate between various kinds of plot (i.e. the varying manifestations or paroles of
this underlying langue). As in his other well-known essay on narratology “The Grammar of
Narrative,” Todorov draws upon Boccaccio's collection of short stories called The
Decameron to support his theory of narrative and manages to distinguish between two
types of story here: a) stories of punishment avoided, and b) stories of conversion.
A careful study of the tales reveals that they share some elements in common, for
which what he calls a "schematic formulation" predicated on the view that there is a
