Intro
In the 14th century, the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio wrote a book called The Decameron, which was pretty much the equivalent of a blockbuster action movie but with a Renaissance flair. A group of ten young people get together in a big house in the countryside to escape the Black Death, which is killing everyone in Italy (which it periodically did throughout the Middle Ages, to the great benefit of literature all over Europe). To pass the time, the young people tell each other stories. The Decameron is made up of these 100 mini-stories that the young people tell each other over ten nights. It's got sex, violence, comedy, despair, lusty priests, hapless travelers, the Italian countryside—everything you'd expect in the 14th-century version of Hollywood.
The Bulgarian structural literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov thought The Decameron could shed some light on the nature of literary study. Since on the surface the 100 mini-stories that make up the book seem totally unrelated, isn't The Decameron kind of like literature as a whole? Literature is also made up of loads and loads of individual stories—millions of 'em, and they all seem to be completely unconnected to one another. But Todorov was willing to bet his bottom ruble that if he could find the underlying rules structuring the stories in The Decameron, then that was probably enough to prove that there are underlying structures and rules that govern all of the stories that make up literature. Now that's science!
So Todorov set out to unearth the "deep structure" of all 100 stories in The Decameron. The conclusion? Despite their differences, all those stories share the same plot structure. He described this plot structure as "a shift from one equilibrium to another," or specifically a shift from culture (society) to nature (the individual) (Todorov, "Structural Analysis of Narrative," 75). What's all this equilibrium stuff? Is it part of that thing about studying literature as a science? Examples from a couple of the stories will shed some light on it.
Quote
In one story, a monk brings a young girl to his monastery room for some hanky-panky. Yes, even though rule #1 of monkhood is no hanky-panky. The abbot (the monk's boss), smells a scandal and decides to punish the monk. But the sly fox of a monk finds out that the abbot wants to punish him and hatches a plan to trick the abbot and save his own skin. He ditches his room but leaves the very pretty girl there. The abbot comes to the room, finds the girl, and since she's quite the stunner, he (gasp!) ends up committing some hanky-panky himself while the monk watches them in secret. When the abbot later confronts the monk about the girl, the monk points out that that hypocrite of an abbot is guilty of exactly the same crime. What a conundrum! So what did they do?
"The abbot, who was a shrewd man, saw at once that the monk was not only more knowing than he, but had actually seen what he had done; nor, conscience-stricken himself, could he for shame mete out to the monk a measure which he himself merited. So pardon given, with an injunction to bury what had been seen in silence, they decently conveyed the young girl out of the monastery, whither, it is to be believed, they now and again caused her to return." (Boccaccio, The Decameron , First Day, Novel IV)
Very monkly.
In another story, a nun is caught in bed with her lover and the jealous other nuns decide to tell on her. They go and find the abbess (the nuns' boss), who is kind of pissed to be interrupted because she was kind of busy herself with a priest she invited for her own sleepover. As the abbess is rushing to catch the sinful nun in the act, she accidentally puts the priest's underwear on her head instead of her abbess hat. Yup, classic nunnery mistake. When the lesser nun shows up for punishment, she points out the abbess's questionable headgear. What to do when you accidentally accessorize with your boyfriend's undies?
"Wherefore the abbess, finding herself detected by all in the same sin, and that no disguise was possible, changed her tone, and held quite another sort of language than before, the upshot of which was that 'twas impossible to withstand the assaults of the flesh, and that, accordingly, observing due secrecy as theretofore, all might give themselves a good time, as they had opportunity. So, having dismissed Isabetta to rejoin her lover in her cell, she herself returned to lie with her priest. And many a time thereafter, in spite of the envious, Isabetta had her gallant to see her, the others, that lacked lovers, doing in secret the best they might to push their fortunes." (Boccaccio, The Decameron, Ninth Day, Novel II)
Analysis
Todorov argued that when we put these two stories side by side (and not just these two, but all the stories in The Decameron), we see some striking similarities in the plot. In both stories, a religiously employed protagonist (monk, nun) breaks a law. Here it's the law of chastity. Then a boss of some sort (abbot, abbess) decides to punish them, but ends up guilty of the same sin they're supposed to be punishing. In both final scenes, the boss' hypocrisy is exposed and so (hurrah!) their underlings escape punishment. And so—structuralist drumroll, please: despite the superficial differences, there is a structural similarity in the plot.
But wait, there's more! The conclusions of the two stories show that a shift from one equilibrium ("culture" and "society") to another equilibrium ("nature" and the "individual") has taken place. After all, at the end of both stories, the bosses who were supposed to discipline the offending protagonists tell them: Hey, you know what, go ahead and indulge. And I will too! Equilibrium or no, those were some seriously raunchy nuns and monks. The point is, the rules have changed by the end of these stories: the desires of the individual come to take precedence over the rules of society.
So basically, even though the gender of these religion-defying hooligans and some of the plot points are different in these two stories, overall they're pretty structurally similar. Todorov expanded on that similarity to talk about stories that didn't have any priests or nuns in them, and even ones that didn't have so racy a punch line at the end. Whatever the details of each story, they had enough similar plot elements and characters to demonstrate something about an underlying structure in the whole book. And that applies to other books, too!