An approach whose goals are to discern and describe the basic structural components of a
folklore genre or example and the interrelationships between or among them. The
principal impetus for structural studies by American folklorists was the 1968 English
translation ofVladimir Propp’s 1928 Morfológija skázki (Morphology of the Folktale).
Propp determined that fairy tales have a maximum number of thirty-one “functions”
(actions of the dramatis personae), which always occur in a set sequence, unless they
undergo a process of transformation. Obligatory functions in Propp’s scheme are the
pairs “lack” and “lack liquidated” or “villainy” and defeat of the villain (“victory”).
Optional functions include such pairs as an “interdiction” and its subsequent “violation”
and a difficult task and its eventual accomplishment, or “resolution.”
Alan Dundes adapted Propp’s scheme, identifying minimal structural units as
“motifemes” instead of functions (Dundes 1962). In analyzing a set of North American
Indian folktales structurally, Dundes discovered that functions (motifemes) that Propp
had discerned in fairy tales are inherent in other kinds of traditional narratives and even
in other folklore genres, including superstitions (Dundes 1964). Like Propp, Dundes
demonstrated that while the content and style of folklore examples may vary considerably
over time, structural elements and their patternings do not. Dundes posited that
motifemes—like phonemes and morphemes in language—are finite, stable, and recurrent.
But each also has multiple “allomotifs” because of content variations. In North American
Indian folktales, for instance, allomotifs of the motifeme “lack” include a lack of water,
food, or fire and an inability to bear children or to remove and juggle one’s eyes. The
motifeme “interdiction” may have as its allomotifs the warning not to face the west wind
while digging for roots, not to remove and juggle one’s eyes more than a specified
number of times (usually four), and not to open a particular box or other container
because its contents (such as darkness or pestilence) will be exposed or escape. Because
these motifemes (functions) occur in pairs in North American Indian oral narratives, just
as they do in Euro-American fairy tales, lacks are predictably liquidated, and interdictions
are always violated.
Since its objective is to uncover the fundamental framework of folklore forms and
examples, the structural approach is reductionist in nature. Dundes’ structural analysis of
a corpus of superstitions he recorded in Brown County, Indiana, led him to offer this
definition: “Superstitions are traditional expressions of one or more conditions and one or
more results with some of the conditions signs and others causes” (Dundes 1961).
Dundes noted that when the conditions are signs, the superstitions can be called “sign
superstitions” (“If theres a ring around the moon, it’s going to rain” or “When you hear a
dog howling, somebody is going to die”). Human beings cannot or do not intentionally
produce signs, but instead merely perceive and interpret them. The basic structural components (conditions and results) in sign superstitions are related temporally, since the
results follow in time the appearance of the conditions. When the relationship between
conditions and results is causal, the superstitions can be termed “magic superstitions”
(“Turn a dead snake’s belly up to bring about rain” or “Wear a blue bead around your
neck to protect yourself from the evil eye”). In magic superstitions, human action is
intentional and is assumed to bring about (cause) a predetermined result. A third (hybrid)
category, that Dundes calls “conversion superstitions,” combines the other two, with
intentional human actions neutralizing or reversing results that signs foreshadow—for
example, “If you spill salt, you’ll have bad luck, unless you throw some over your left
shoulder” or “If you drop a comb, you’ll have bad luck, unless you step on it, turn around
three times, and make a wish” (this conversion resulting in one’s not only averting bad
luck, but also having a wish come true). These three kinds of superstitions, note Elli
Köngäs-Maranda, and Pierre Maranda, are structurally identical and therefore can be
represented by a single formula: “If A, then B, unless C” (Köngäs-Maranda and Maranda
1962:178).
Structural analyses of other folklore genres similarly illustrate the reductionist
preoccupation of the approach. The structure of many proverbs can be described
formulaically as A=B, as in such examples as “Business is business,” “Enough is
enough,” and “Boys will be boys.” Other proverbs exemplify an A≠B (A is the opposite
of B) patterning, as in “Service is no heritage” and “A fair exchange is no robbery.”
Inequality rather than nonequality is expressed in still other proverbs—for example,
“Half a loaf is better than no bread” and “A taleteller is worse than a thief,” which can be
said to have an A> B (A is greater than B) and an A