n born Britishlanguage scholar of the 1800s. Muller suggested that all gods and mythical heroes wererepresentation of nature, especially the sun. Muller also believed hat all major godsrepresented the sun at one its many phases. Todays scholars don not take Mullers maintheories seriously. But Muller and his followers did seriously influence later theoriesabout the origin of myths (Littleton986).Next was Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, who was an English anthropologist of the1800s that believed that myths began through peoples efforts account for unexplainableoccurrences in dreams. According to Tylor, the first idea about the supernatural was thebelief that the soul was able to wander freely and have many adventures. Soon thereafterpeople believed everything in nature had a soul, and this belief helped them to explainnatural occurrences like volcanic eruptions. It was Tylor that states that Animism, theidea that everything in nature has a soul, was the first step in the development of thehuman thought, and the basis of myths (Littleton 986)Bronislaw Malinowski was a polish born British anthropologist of the early1900s. He disagreed with a Tylor that myths began as prescientific attempts to explaindreams and natural occurrences. According to Malinoski all people recognize that afrontier exists between what people can and cannot explain logically. Malinowskibelieves people create myths when they reach the frontier. he said that people createdmyths to relieve tension brought on by lack of knowledge (Littleton 987-88).Claude Levi- Strauss, a modern French anthropologist, is the best-knownsupporter of the structuralism. Structuralism is the use of myths as a language to expressunconscious deep held ideas about themselves and the world around them. Levi-Straussbelieves a myths purpose is to explain and unexplainable situation. Scholars have arguedthat Levi-Strausss theories were subjective and others claim that his structural figureswere too far r...
