Yirminci yüzyılın başında doğa bilimleri, hem geleneksel anlayışların beraberinde getirdiği bunalımlardan hem de bilimsel bilgiye yeni yaklaşımlar sunamadığından çıkmaza girdi. 19.y.y'da itibar görmüş olan evrimci düşünce yerini yapısalcılığa bıraktı. Yapısalcılığın kesin bir tanımını yapmak gerçekten de çok zor. Yapısalcılık kimi zaman akımın savunuculuğunu yapan bazı yazarların değişken ve birbirini tutmayan görüşleri, kimi zaman da okurun konuyu derinlemesine bilmemesinden kaynaklanan yanlış anlamalar nedeniyle genel-geçer bir tanıma sahip olamamıştır. Yine de en genel anlamda Scholes'un dediği gibi gerçeği nesnelerde değil de nesneler arası ilişkilerde arama yöntemidir, denilebilir Bugün budunbilim, psikanaliz, felsefe, matematik, fizik, kimya, ruhbilim, edebiyat, sinema ve hatta teoloji gibi geniş bir yelpazede uygulanabilirlik kazanmış olan yapısalcılığın tanımı ve yöntemi konusunda fikirbirliğine varamayan uygulamacılar hiç olmazsa akımın kaynakları konusunda birleşirler. Bu kaynaklar Saussure, Rus Biçimciliği ve Prag Okulu'dur. 1960'lı yıllara gelindiğinde Fransa'da, yapısalcılığın edebiyat alanında hızlı bir gelişim kaydettiği gözlenir. Yapısalcılar anlatıların oluşumlarıyla, tarihçeleriyle, yorumlarıyla ilgilenmezler. Onlar için önemli olan yapıtın yapısal düzeni, etkin öğelerin hangi anlatımsal dizim kurallarına uyduğu, nasıl bir bileşim çizelgesi gösterdiğidir. Ortaya çıktığı dönemde geniş yankılar uyandıran akım, aynı zamanda yoğun eleştirilere de maruz kalmıştır. Kimi eleştirmenler akımı, yapısalcılığın ortaya çıktığı dönemdeki siyasî ve ideolojik ortamları temel alarak, tam olarak görünmeyen arka planı açısından değerlendirmiştir. Kimileri de tarihe bakış açısı, dilbilimsel yöntemleri kullanış tarzı, eserlere yaklaşımı, insana verdiği değer konularında eleştirmişlerdir

Natural sciences, at the beginning of the twentieth century, got stuck in, because it couldn’t offer a new approach for the demands of the scientific knowledge, and couldn’t find a way for releasing from the depression that conventional conceptualizations have brought with. Evolutionary thought that respected in 19th century gave place to structuralism. It is really hard to give a description for structuralism. Structuralism couldn’t be defined universally because of capricious and inconsistent misunderstandings of ignorant readers who didn’t know the subject thoroughly. But, in general, as Scholes said, it can be said that, it is a method which seeks for reality not in the objects themselves but in the relations among objects. Today, the practitioners who couldn’t have a consensus about the definition and methods of structuralism in application of structuralism in wide range of ethnology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, psychology, literature, cinema, and even theology, compromise in the foundations of the movement. These foundations are, Saussure, Prague School, and Russian formalism. Toward 1960s it is observed that structuralism has developed rapidly in literature in France. Structuralisms do not care about the emergence, history, interpretations of the narratives. The important thing for structuralism is, structural design of work of art, and which active components are in harmony with narrative systematic rules, and how it is compositionally charted. Structuralism influenced the era strongly which it emerged in, but also has been subjected to massive criticism. While some critics, taking the environment that the approach has been emerged into account, criticizing it because of lack of transparency in background that it evolved, some others criticized for the aspect of structuralism to history, the style of usage of linguistics methods, approach to pieces, and appreciation of humanity Natural sciences, at the beginning of the twentieth century, got stuck in, because it couldn’t offer a new approach for the demands of the scientific knowledge, and couldn’t find a way for releasing from the depression that conventional conceptualizations have brought with. In this environment, efforts to reconstruct the science have begun. In order to pass from the experimental descriptive level to the theoretical level, mathematicalization and formalization methods were applied and the structure of abstract relations was questioned. At the end of all this, the evolutionist who had a reputation in the 19th century left the place of evolutionist thought largely to structuralism.Swiss Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) taught linguistics at the University of Geneva between1907-1911. After Saussure died, his students gathered his lecture notes and published a book called General Linguistics Courses (1916). This book, which suggests that there is also a string dimension besides being a historical dimension of language, is the basis of structuralism. According to Saussure's understanding, the items that form the language do not mean anything by themselves. They can only be understood as the result of communication with each other . Each item of language does not show the same qualities in every connection. That is why the item has no fixed existence. In fact, an item is a different thing in every connection. Another source of structuralism is the Russian Formalist. Russian formalists have concentrated their work between the years 1915-1930. Although they are distant from Saussure in terms of time and consantreted case, they also approach him in terms of the system of thought. Formalists have created a new ekol that the Russian Formers, as in Saussure, have made specific works that focus on the connection of words to each other. Russian formalists have not considered the writer, the reader, the social and historical conditions when examining the texts. They have laid the groundwork for structuralism by emphasizing the formal aspect of literary work. Settled down 1926, the Prague linguistic community is influenced by Saussure. The Prague linguistic community made up of famous names such as Mathesius, Havrenek, Trnka, Vachek; Tesniere, J.Vendryes, Benveniste and Martinet. After Russian formality ended in Russia, the formalists went to Czechoslovakia and continued to expand their ideas in the Prague school. Troubetzkoy, who is among the founders of phonology; Jacobson and Karcevkij, who form the bridge between formalism and the Prague School, were among them. The school of Prague continued its existence until the outbreak of the World War II. With the outbreak of war, Jacobson settled in America and there he met Claude Levi-Strauss, a French antropologist. The relations of these two great names of structuralism have played a very important role in the development of modern structuralism. Structuralism in Literature When it comes to the 1960s, it is observed that structuralism has developed rapidly in the field of literature in France. Poetry is formed by methods applied in linguistic method. Poetic research comes from a subset of the closed discourse of the form of expression. If it seems to work on a seemingly narrow whole, it is actually a wide and complex enterprise. Poetry implements methods that reveal the specific link between the objects and the specified planes. Structuralism was not only effective in the field of poetry, it also gave a new image to narrative works. Algirdas Julien Greimas, Tzvetan Todorov, Gérard Genette, Claude Bremond, and Roland Barthes created "narrative science." Researchers dealing with structural literary criticism have focused on narrative discourse, which is a general feature of genres such as epic, novel, story and so on. Structuralists are not interested in the formation of narratives, their histories, their interpretations. What is important for them is the structural scheme of the work, the conformity of the active elements to the narrative rules of composition, the composition chart they create. The topics that are examined when analyzing; events, people, stories and acts. Claude Levi-Strauss's work on myths is a pioneering work in narrative analysis. The Russian Formant Vladimir Propp has examined the Russian public tales and suggested that the people in the tables were excluded from the seven unchanging roles. These are aggressive, donor, helper, princess (soughtafter person), sender, hero, fake hero. Propp's narrative approach, which finds that the Russian people's tale is the only form of things, is a sequential, Levi-Strauss’s series. Tzvetan Todorov tried to solve the stories of Boccaacio's Decameron in a grammatical way. Gerard Genette leads by way of the fabula-syuzhet of the Russian Formalists. Genette talks about three planes for analyzing a narrative text. These are "discourse" which is a sequence of events or events in the text, a historie and a "naration" that are arranged in order that the series should actually have come to fruition Barthes says that the method of analysis is "criticism", and that criticism is a constructive activity like literature itself. The literary work, a functional entity, determines how it is to be determined. Criticism of Structuralism Structuralism, which evoked wide repercussions during the emergence, was also exposed to intense criticism. Some critics have assessed the current in terms of a completely unseen background, based on the political and ideological milieu in which the structuralism emerged. Some critics have argued that structuralism carries the characteristics of the late-bourgeois ideology. According to this view, the bourgeoisie opposes historicalism in order to get rid of the confusion that it has entered and rests on the principle of invariance The constructivist method does not limit the mechanics and divides the works unnecessarily. Structuralists who have abandoned the "mysterious" nature of literature have also fallen into the illusion of thinking that even the most special experiences of humans are influenced by structure. Structuralism has tried to get modern society into a mold, aiming to make all people from the same perspective. The structuralists who think that there is no freedom of subjectivity, ignore the facts that the work deals with, the conditions that produce it, and the readers. It brings anonymous subjectivism instead of concrete subjects. Derrida's critique of structuralism has led to the creation of a new method of criticism: Deconstruction Result Theories are methodological thinking channels and they allow us to think within a given system. Thus confusing evaluations leave their place to the systematic view; but how can it be correct to try to make sense of it by separating it from its historical platform, periodic conditions, and its essence while systematically treating a cone like it is in structuralism? Examining a text in a way that lacks historical and biographical ground can not go far beyond its true meaning. Structuralism should be seen as a complementary way of thinking and should be viewed in this way, not as a theory alone. Otherwise, how can a "Sis" poem to be analyzed only with structuralism theory be understood, how much can a "Huzur" novel be analyzed? On the other hand, when a literary text based on the pleasure of aesthetic concerns and the desire to sublimate the spirit is evaluated in a structuralist way, the artistic aura of the work is pushed to the edge. To understand the text, constructivists who look at the links they have established with each other at that moment, prevail over all the words in the phrase, and empty out the "language" they say they care about.