A. J. Greimas in Jakarta: Essay on Story Structure 
Richard SKINNER
Faber Academy, UK
 

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.

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

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