The most basic difference between liberal humanist and structuralist reading is that the structuralist's comments on structure, symbol, and design, become paramount, and are the main focus of the commentary while the emphasis on any wider moral significance, and indeed on interpretation itself in the broad sense, is very much reduced. So instead of going straight into the content, in the liberal humanist manner, the structuralist presents a series of parallels, echoes, reflections, patters and contrasts so that the narrative becomes highly schematised, is translated in fact, into what we might call a verbal diagram. What we are looking for, and where we expect to find it, can be indicated as in the diagram below. We are looking for the factors listed on the left, and we expect to find them in the parts of the tale listed on the right.
Parallels Plot
Echoes Structure
Reflections/Repetitions in Character/Motive
Contrasts Situation/circumstance
Patterns Language/Imagery
