Narrative Theory – Roland Barths

Eman Shah

Biography Roland Barths (12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980). He was a French literacy theorist, Philosopher, Linguist, Critic and a Semiotician. Barthes ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, social theory, design theory, anthropology and post – structuralism. In his early work, Barthes was a struturalist and semiotician, influenced by the writings of Ferdinand de Saussure’s study of signs and signification. He preferred not to classify his thoughts, evident in the range of subject matter for analysis in his works, often to provoke the bourgeoisie, which is the means of production.

Main Theory – The Hermeneutic Code and the Proairetic Code

This code refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the reader for example a ‘shock factor’ which will keep the audience intrigued. It refers to any element in a story that is not explained and therefore, exists an enigma for the audience, raising questions that demand explications. Most stories hold back details in order to increase the effect of the final revelation of all diegetic truths.

The Hermeneutic Code. An example of this would be a scene from Fast and Furious 4 & 6 directed by Justin Lin and written by Chris Morgan.

In this shot, of fast and furious we see a funeral taking place for Letty because Phoenix killed her while she tried escaping in her car. Whilst she was escaping Phoenix hit her car with his, making her car flip and while she crawled out of her car trying to escape he shoots her.

However, in fast and furious 6, in this close up scene we see Dwayne Johnson (Hobbs) looking at a file when he sees a photo of Letty finding out she is alive. This is a shock factor to the audience as in fast 4 she was shown to be dead. - Barthes has said that there should be a shock factor to be shown in a film will leave an audience intrigued.

This is another scene form fast 6. In this scene Vin Diesel (Dom) chases after Letty, but she does not remember who he is to her as she lost her memory in the car crash that happened to her in fast 4. So this is why she is holding up a gun at him.

As said, The Hermeneutic Code refers to a mystery within a text. Clues are dropped however no clear answers are given which we saw in fast and furious 4. - Enigmas within the narrative make the audience want to know

more.- Unanswered enigmas tend to frustrate the audience.

The Semantic Code

This code refers to connotation within the story that gives additional meaning over the basic denotative meaning of the world. It is by the use of extended meaning that can be applied to words that authors can paint rich meaningful pictures with relatively limited text and the way they do this is a common indication of their storytelling within films.

The Symbolic Code

This code is very similar to the Semantic code, it acts upon at a wider level organising semantic meaning for example in film. This broadens the set of meaning used in many films. This is typically done in the use of antithesis, where new meaning arises out of opposing and conflicting ideas.

The Cultural Code

This code refers to anything that is founded on some kind of canonical works that cannot be challenged and is assumed to work that cannot be challenged and is assumed to be the foundation of truth. Mainly this involves either science or religion, although other canons such as magical truths may be used in fantasy stories. The Gnomic Code is a cultural code that particularly refers to sayings, proverbs, clichés and either common meaning giving words sets.

The Enigma Code

This code also builds attention, similar to the Hermeneutic code. It includes any action or event that indicates something else is going to happen and which hence gets the reader guessing as to what will happen next. The enigma and hermeneutic code work in pairs to develop the story’s tension and keep the reader interested. Barths described them as - …’dependent on two sequel codes: the revelation of truth and the coordination of the actions represented: there is the same constraint in the gradual order to the melody and also in the equally gradual order to the narrative sequence.’