Can someone explain Claude Levi Strauss's theory on myths based on Structuralism?

Question

I am writing an essay comparing the theorists Mircea Eliade and Claude Levi Strauss on their concept of myths.

Answer 1

...anthropology gave the scholar the opportunity to come into contact with the lives of men of different cultures, rather than just Western cultures. His belief that the characteristics of man are everywhere identical was found after countless travels to Brazil and visits to North and South American Indian tribes. In fact, Levi-Strauss spent more than half his 59 years studying the behavior of the North and South American Indian tribes. The method he used to study the social organization of these tribes is called structuralism. "Structuralism," says Levi-Strauss, "is the search for unsuspected harmonies..."

Levi-Strauss derived structuralism from a school of linguistics whose focus was not on the meaning of the word, but the patterns that the words form. Levi-Strauss's contribution gave us a theory of how the human mind works. Man passes from a natural to a cultural state as he uses language, learns to cook, etc... Structuralism considers that in the passage from natural to cultural, man obeys laws he does not invent it's a mechanism of the human brain. Levi-Strauss views man not as a privileged inhabitant of the universe, but as a passing species which will leave only a few faint traces of its passage when it becomes extinct.

Levi Strauss is also known for his structural analysis of mythology. He was interested in explaining why myths from different cultures from around the globe seem so similar. He answers this question not by the content of myths, but by their structure. To make this argument Levi-Strauss insists that myth is a language because myth has to be told in order to exist. A myth is almost always set some time long ago, with a timeless story. He says myth is actually on a more complex level than language. Myth shares with language the following characteristics:

1. It's made of units that are put together according to certain rules.

2. These units form relationships with each other, based on opposites which provide the basis of the structure.

He concludes that the structural method of myth analysis brings order out of a mess. It provides a means to account for widespread variations on a basic myth structure, and is logical and scientific. This was important for the scientist in Levi-Strauss. He says that repetition, in myth as in oral literature, is necessary to reveal the structure of the myth. Because of this need for repetition, the myth is told in layer after layer. However, the layers aren't the same, and it's eventually shown that the myth "grows" as it is told, but the structure of the myth does not grow.

References:
Written by Sarah Schmitt, 1999 "

Answer 2

Levi-strauss Structuralism

Answer 3

Levi Strauss Theory

Answer 4

No, no one can explain that guy's theory's. You'd be better off reading Marvin Harris's books based on the theory of Environmental Determinism. Sorry.

Answer 5

i love answers, and I have interest because I know how to explain because with out exception I get it here. Again I got how do I explain Love to some one and I wanted the answer. I can say the answer is here after your question someone else gave me answer. Now i say oops and I i knew the answer.

Answer 6

yes ...the structure of Levis is much stonger than Lee jeans....you're welcome