five codes- seminar

7/30/2019 Five Codes- Seminar

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Seminar

A study of the five codes, as proposed by Roland Barthes in his S/Z (1970), in the short

story A Wedding Gift by Guy de Maupassant.

Poststructuralism is concerned with disrupting or deconstructing the perceived unity of a text-

unity in terms of meaning and structure. Post structuralism departs from structuralism in this

that while the structuralists studied individual narratives (texts) in order to understand the

underlying pattern of all narratives, what they refer to as the grammar of the text; the Post

structuralists did away with structures altogether and instead tried to show how a narrative

constantly breaches its own borders. A text exists in relation to and in difference from other

texts so that there is no single meaning of a text but instead what we have is a multitude of

meanings. They were concerned in other words about the textuality of the text. Post

Structuralists advocate a writerly' approach to the study of narrative rather than a readerlyone. A text should not be closed by assigning a single meaning to it but rather it should be

kept open giving rise to a multitude of meanings.

Roland Barthes in his seminal work S/Z (1970) does a post structuralist analysis of Balzacs

short story Sarrasine and demonstrates how a text opens up to a multitude of possible

meanings. He breaks up the text into many fragments which he refers to as reading units or

Lexias . According to Barthes all narratives share certain structural features that are

interwoven differently within individual narratives. He terms these organizational features as

Codes which play a key role in our understanding of the text. He primarily identifies five codes

which are- Hermeneutic code, Proairetic code, Semic code, Symbolic code and Cultural code.

He studies the particular lexia in relation to the five codes and tries to bring out the multiple

meanings and connotations in a text.

Using Guy de Maupassants short story A Wedding Gift as an instance, this paper attempts to

explain how these five codes operate in the text.

Hermeneutic and Proairetic Code:

The hermeneutic and proairetic codes are concerned with the temporal order of the narrative.

They are the driving forces in a narrative that arrests the attention of the reader from

beginning till end.

Hermeneutic code primarily deals with those aspects in a narrative which raises questions in

the mind of the reader (questions like who? what? where? when? why? etc) for which he/she


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thereafter proceeds to seek answers. For instance, in the short story, A Wedding Gift, the very

title of the essay raises the question as to what is the wedding gift, the answer to which is not

revealed until the last line of the story. The narrator by withholding this information manages

to hold the attention of the reader till the end. The first sentence in the story,

For a long time Jacques Bourdillere had sworn that he would never marry, but he suddenly changed his mind

Immediately raising the question as to why he suddenly changed his mind?

Another instance of hermeneutic code that creates a moment of suspense in the narrative is

when Jacques, the protagonist of the story, receives a letter on the night of his wedding. We

are told of the letter and the tension it creates in the mind of the Jacques and in turn in the

mind of the reader.

Jacques, trembling, took this paper, overwhelmed by a vague and sudden fear, the mysterious

terror of swift misfortune.

The situation raises a question in the mind of the reader as to why is he terrified on seeing the

letter when previously he simply used to tear it off, which leads us to seek the cause. By

withholding the content of the letter the narrator manages to prolong our anticipation.

He looked for a longtime at the envelope, the writing on which he did not know, not daring to

open it, not wishing to read it, with a wild desire to put it in his pocket and say to himself:

Ill leave that till to-morrow, when Im far away! But one corner two big words, underlined,

very urgent, filled him with terror.

Note that another technique the narrator uses is reducing the pace of narration. By stretching

the moment, it is further prolonged and the suspense is enhanced. The narrator withholds the

secret to the maximum, so much so that we are told about it only little after Jacques himself

comes to know of it.

Proairetic code deals with the action in the narrative. It also produces anticipation in the mind

of reader in terms of how a particular action will arrive at its resolution. In the narrative there

are two major scenes of action. The first scene ends with Jacques being informed about the

critical condition of his ex-girlfriend who has just given birth to his child and him rushing off to

the hospital. The immediate question that rises in the mind is what he is going to do next. Will

he leave his newly wedded wife? Further as the scene shifts from the hospital back to the


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house, in which he returns home with his baby, the reader is haunted by questions as to what

will be the reaction of his wife. Will she accept him or reject him? Will her family accept him

and the baby after they taking so long to grant him her hand?

Both the hermeneutic and proairetic code holds the attention of the reader first by raisingquestions and then by anticipation of the actions resolution. A reader will be satisfied only

when the loose-ends of the narrative are tied. By extending the hermeneutic and proairetic

the narrator keeps the text open till the end.

Semic/Semantic Code:

It refers to those elements in the text that carries additional meaning by way of connotation.

By connotation here Barthes does not mean free- association of meanings drawn from

external contexts but those special meanings that the words acquire from the inherent textual

context. In the story the word letter acquires a certain connotation. The letter appears at thebeginning of the narrative as a distraction when Jacques tries to prove his devotion towards

Berthe by cutting off his relationship with his long time girl friend.

She wrote him letters which he never opened. Every week he would recognize the clumsy

writing of the abandoned woman, and every week a greater anger surged within him against

her, and he would quickly tear the envelope

Later in the story when the letter is brought to Jacques on his wedding night the reader is

partially informed as to what is about to come as the reader begins to associate, as the

narrative moves, that the letter connotes his girlfriend. The letter here therefore acts as

the semic code as it is connotative of his ex-girlfriend and helps to proceed the narration

without having to explain every time that the letter is from his ex-girlfriend. The reader

automatically comes to assume it.

Symbolic code :

The symbolic code refers to the deeper structural principles around which the narrative is

organized. The often operate by means of binaries and antithesis. The entire narrative in this

case is structured on the male-female (here Jacques- Berthe/Ravet), love-lust, wife-mistress

binaries. The narrative works with certain stereotypical images for instance, Jacques, the hero,

is a typical male who keeps off from commitment and prefers to lead a loose sexual life before

he meets Berthe, the epitome of ideal woman- with sweet mind, so simple and good, as

fresh as her cheeks and lips- who lives a secure, protected life . He is redeemed of his sins in

her presence. The behavior of the characters are also very much in keeping with these binaries


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as you can gather the from the girls reaction to the wedding (one of he few times when we

perceive her presence).

She sat there with a dreamy look, feeling a little lost at this great change in her life, but

smiling, moved, ready to cry, often almost ready to faint from joy, believing the whole world

to be changed by what had just happened to her, uneasy, she knew not why

The narrative by emphasizing Jacques act of redeeming himself in the name of his love for

Berthe overshadows the other side of the story where he abandons a young woman. The role

assigned to the women in the narrative is either that of a wife or a mistress, both undoubtedly

devoted to the man they love. The narrative discourse is structured around these binaries and

the narrator at no points tries to trample with them. However the whole narrative comes to be

seen under a new light when you grasp the irony inherent in the title A Wedding Gift.

Cultural code :It refers to those aspects in the story that form part of a shared body of knowledge. It

therefore consists of references beyond the text to what is considered as common knowledge

(say medical, physical, physiological, literary, history etc). The description of setting where

the wedding takes place- the large parlor, Japanese Boudoir hung with bright silks, large

colored lantern hanging from the sealing etc inform you of the characters affluent background

which otherwise is not mentioned in explicit terms. More over the use of the medical term

hemorrhage is part of the shared knowledge which the narrator assumes that the reader will

know.

By means of these codes, which are interwoven in the narrative, Barthes demonstrates how a

text is replete with voices instead of a single voice.

This paper merely demonstrates how the codes can be identified within a single text. When we

study a each lexia in relation to the five codes as demonstrated above what we get is a whole

galaxy of meanings.

five codes- seminar

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