Claude Levi-Strauss's Theory

'Audiences understand one because they understand the other'

Claude Levi-Strauss found that as humans we makes sense of the world, people and events by seeing and using binary opposites. He also found that narratives are arranged around the conflict of binary opposites.

Claude Levi-Strauss and Roland Barthes together found that the way we understand certain words is not only down to its meaning, but rather our understanding between the word itself and its 'opposite', they then called this the 'Binary Opposite'. They realised that words act as symbols for society's ideas and that the meaning of words is in fact a relationship between opposing ideas rather than having a fixed meaning.

For example:
    Good Vs Evil
    Boy Vs Girl
    Black Vs White

Theory Summary

   Claude Levi-Strauss's theory says that conflict is based around binary opposites, and that binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure.    

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