A. J. Greimas in Jakarta: Essay on Story Structure

Year 2021, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 1 - 9, 20.04.2021

Richard Skınner

Abstract

A. J. Greimas’ Semiotic Square first made its appearance in his book Sémantique Structurale, published in 1966. In it, he uses the square to identify and explore sets of oppositions within literary texts. In my essay, “A. J. Greimas in Jakarta”, I use Greimas’ model and apply it to stories, novellas and novels by writers as diverse as Alice Munro, Andre Dubus, Han Kang and Julian Barnes in order to explore the narrative structure of those texts. In particular, I use the square to pinpoint and highlight the four-way sets of relationships in operation in all those texts.

Keywords

Formalism, Deep structure, Black holes in fiction, Narrative theory, Intertextuality

References

• Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. Jonathan Cape, 2011.
• Bates, H.E. Love for Lydia. Penguin, 1952.
• Dubus, Andre. We Don’t Live Here Anymore: The Novellas of Andre Dubus. Picador, 1984.
• Hardy, Thomas. Far from the Madding Crowd. Cornhill Magazine, 1874.
• Kang, Han. The Vegetarian. 2007. Portobello, 2015.
• Munro, Alice. “Jakarta.” The Love of a Good Woman. Vintage, 1998.