Name NPM Subject

: Astrid Widya Natasha : 180410110210 : Critical Theory (Response #3) The Idea of Structure and the Alienated Element Lately, I have been thinking that the life I am living now has somehow

controlled by the system that if something was not work the way it has to do then the other compartment also would not work as well. This system I am talking about may only be a small element in a bigger system that has already been working. The bigger system that has the smaller system may also be a small element in another system that is bigger than the bigger system. These systems are linked and working together in a connection so that when the small compartment broke, it will break the working of the system. The system which somehow is also influenced by a prior situation, basically is formed by some elements that have a relation between one of them and works automatically whether the compartments are aware to or not. For example, an ATM card that I am using for transaction is equally compared to the money I use. Formerly, long before money was not invented yet, people used thing to buy another thing. In other words, in order to exchange thing people also used goods to be the medium instead of money. That former system is called barter. People were forced unconsciously deeper into it without realizing the work of the system. The law was not so strict that if a person wanted goods he just had to find something that is worth for what he wanted. My grandparents were experiencing this system for money on that era still rarely distributed among the low-income family. My grandfather was in the army so that he got paid with some sack of rice and a little bit of money. My grandmother who is a housewife has to find some way to feed her husband and their eight children. With only a bit of money, she knew that it was not enough for them to buy a proper food so usually she went to the farmers market with some smaller sacks of rice and exchanged them with oils and eggs. That was long ago before ATM is invented. Before, people were accustomed to use goods as money to buy and to sell things. Then, when the system changed people have to follow it. Nowadays, every shop is built with an instant payment installation. With only a piece of card, people can buy everything

they want. The card is a symbol for the money as well as the goods that are used in barter system. According to Rowe, the system by some previous theorist was considered as structure as to recognize the interrelation of time and space as fundamental to the concept of structurality. Thus the system is also known as a structure. The structure also is built by certain elements that heap together and are arranged. I also prefer to use the term structure because just like the building or a construction, if one of its elements does not fit to the other it only makes the building weak. Just like the transaction, if the ATM used as barter, I mean, I literally exchange my card to the things I want (the card was given to the seller and I received the goods) it makes the structure does not work because it should not work that way. The point is the elements should have a congruent interrelationship so that the structure does not collapse. I was once tried to proof that the system would not work if I have something different to fit in it. I was joining a casual discussion with some of my friends with a different background and also different perspective. When there was a motion and people began discussing whether they had to agree to that or disagree. Some of them doubted their own statement when one of my friends forced me that I had to agree to them. I refused to agree as I have my own perspective and in the end she said I had to go to see a psychiatric. I was laughing because it was very funny. I mean, if there are ten people working together, nine of them agree the same opinion and one out of ten is having the other opinion then the one should be forced to agree or in other word to fit that same opinion. In conclusion, the structure has to work in the same force, in the same state and in the same mission, otherwise if one of its elements is working in the opposite direction, then it will be discarded. Bibliography: Rowe, John C. 1955. Structure. Edited by Frank Lentricchia and Thom as McLaughlin. Critical Terms for Literary Study Second Edition. The University of Chicago Press.