Structuralism and Reality in Wrestling Essay - 1205 Words

When discussing structuralism, I find that it takes a realistic viewpoint of how the world is represented, as we essentially are awash in concepts and signs via the structures of communication and language. In this weeks readings I found more depth to the ideas behind structuralism that my previous exposures, especially when looking to Roland Barthes The World of Wrestling from his collection Mythologies. The World of Wrestling provided ample insight into how the structuralist idea of difference plays into deriving meaning (or meanings) from literature in innumerable ways, especially in how the reception of specific mythemes and signifiers evoke structurally conditioned responses from the public. One of the most important concepts†¦show more content†¦Livre, or book, cannot represent the actual physical existence of the book, rather it acts as a pointer toward the idea of the real object or concept out in the world. So thus, each utterance in a language points to a concrete concept, and how that concept is understood through language reflects on how a speaker (or writer, artist, comedian, dancer, so on; all are forms of expression and/or language) views and interprets the world based on their given structural understanding of the world. Each reader assumes, due to prior exposure to the structure of their given communication (be it French, English, American Sign Language), that when the signifier appears, the built-in, tag-along concept will follow. Extending this to literature each text is a speech act in its own right. Looking at an individual text, as the New Critics would, would equate evaluating his pitch and equating it to meaning. In this case an individual text is an utterance within the system, an example of parole (Bressler 99). However, looking at the text for how it expresses meaning, how it works on its audiences preconceptions (or lack thereof) exposes the underlying structures at play, not only in the world of literature, but in how the world