Roland Barthes' narrative codes

1. Roland Barthes’ narrative codes

2. Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980)
was a French literary theorist,
philosopher, linguist, critic, and
semiotician.
Barthes' ideas explored a diverse
range of fields and he influenced
the development of schools of
theory including structuralism,
semiotics, social theory and
anthropology.
Influenced by Ferdinand de
Saussure’s structural linguistics.

3. Roland Barthes argues in his text, S/Z (a 1970 structuralist analysis of Sarrasine, the short story by
French realist novelist Honoré de Balzac) that every narrative is interwoven with multiple narrative
codes. He identifies five main narrative codes:
 Proairetic code (the voice of empirics):The code of the sequences of cumulative actions which
constitute the events of the narrative.
 Hermeneutic code (the voice of truth):The code of the enigmas and its interpretation.
 Cultural or referential code (the voice of science [or knowledge]): Though all codes are
cultural we reserve this designation for the storehouse of knowledge we use in interpreting
everyday experience. References to a science or a body of knowledge (physical,
physiological, medical, psychological, literary, historical, etc.)
 Semic [or Connotative code] (the voice of the person):The accumulation of connotations.
Semes, sequential thoughts, traits and actions bear concealed meanings (connotations).
“Connotation is concealed beneath the regular s0und of ‘sentences’”
 Symbolic code (voice of the symbol): Binary oppositions or themes.The inscription into the
text of the antithesis central to the organization of the cultural code.

4.  The proairetic code refers
to the actions that the
characters take to solve
the conflict/problem in the
narrative.
 These actions conform the
characters’ behaviour
(according to their role) and
the storyline of the
narrative.
Proairetic
code

5.  Conventional narratives offer gratifications for audiences and
particular emotions are generated by the narrative.
 Problems and their complications create enigmas for the
audience.We tend not to be satisfied by a narrative unless all
"loose ends" are tied, the final truth is revealed and the
reader/audience achieves closure.
 The audience are engaged by the enigma, and are naturally
curious as to find out what actions will be undertaken and
how the problems will be solved (hermeneutics: interpretation
of the text)

6.  Depending on the genre, particular emotions are generated by
the enigmas in the narrative.Audiences feel:
 Fear in a horror narrative
 Excitement in an action narrative
 Empathy, sympathy and/or identification in a soap or drama
 Suspense and tension in a thriller narrative
 These emotional responses draw the audience into a story and
then encourage them to stay.
 The resolution of the enigma is the reward the audience receives
at the end of the emotional journey the narrative has taken them
on, and provides comfort and reassurance as closure is achieved.

7. As Barthes explains, "The variety of these terms (their inventive range) attests
to the considerable labour the discourse must accomplish if it hopes to arrest
the enigma, to keep it open“
In order to create and maintain interest, some devices are used to conceal
the final truth (the resolution to the enigma):
 The snare – a deliberate avoidance of the truth. A tease or an implication
that sends the audience down a wrong path.
 Partial answers/Suspended answers – revealing some of the final
truth(s)This is used to actually increase suspense.
 Equivocation – a mixture of truth and snare.
 Jamming – Suggesting that the problem may be unsolvable.

8.  The cultural code (or referential
code) designates any element in a
narrative that refers "to a science or
a body of knowledge“.
 In other words, the cultural codes
tend to point to our shared
knowledge about the way the world
works.
 The "gnomic" code is one of the
cultural codes and refers to those
cultural codes that are tied to clichés,
proverbs, or popular sayings of
various sorts

9.  This code refers to the connotations within the story that gives
additional meaning over the basic denotative meaning of the
words and actions.
 It is by the use of semes*, that this extended meaning can be
applied to words, objects and actions that authors can paint rich
pictures with relatively limited text.
 *seme (plural semes or semata: linguistics, semiotics)Anything
which serves for any purpose as a substitute for an object of which
it is, in some sense, a representation or sign.

10.  The symbolic code refers to organized systems of semes (Any
element in the narrative which serves for any purpose as
a representation or sign of an abstract concept, an idea, an object,
a person, etc.)
 When two connotative elements are placed in opposition or
brought together by the narrator, they form an element of the
SymbolicCode.
 The symbolic code can be difficult to distinguish from the
semantic code and Barthes is not always clear on the distinction
between these two codes; the easiest way to think of the symbolic
code is as a "deeper" structural principle that organizes semantic
meanings, usually by way of antitheses or by way of mediations
between antithetical terms.

11. Symbol for the philosophical and literary
tradition. The Thespian Artist is an Englishman
(sign for the Old World=European culture)
brought to the New World=America) He recites
from memory Shakespeare, the Old Testament,
Shelley and Abraham Lincoln, all signs for
literature, poetry and politics (art and philosophy)
and symbolic of the European cultural tradition.
He appears in the posters as The Wingless
Thrush, as he is just a head (sign for a
brain/mind and symbol for knowledge) with no
arms or legs (signs for the body’s practical
functionality), signifying the apparent lack of
practical value of art and philosophy.
The audience is a sign for the uneducated
masses of the New World and their constant
search for instant gratification without any
intellectual effort. The mass audience is a
symbol for the cultural shift taking place in the
transition from modernity to postmodernity, as
well as the current cinema and theatre audiences
and their preference for the spectacularism of
entertainment products such as blockbuster films
and musicals, instead of more sophisticated and
intellectually challenging texts.
The “mathematical” chicken symbolises both
the commercial, profit driven nature of business,
always quantified in mathematical terms instead
of being qualified by its cultural value or
relevance, as well as the shift in the transmission
of culture characteristic of the digital age through
the use of algorithms (such as political
propaganda feeds in social media, films on online
audio-visual platforms such as Netflix, etc.)
It symbolises the “Disneyfication” of the cultural
industries (in Adorno’s, Horkheimer’s and
Hesmondhalgh’s terms).
The impresario symbolises the materialistic
nature of business. He is not interested in the
cultural value of literature, poetry or philosophy,
but on the revenue that a business can return
and its profit margins.
He is portrayed a simple man with simple
passions (alcohol and sex) who is exclusively
concerned with money. He symbolises the
ruthlessness and lack of moral principles of the
capitalist logics of the business world.
The “mathematical” chicken is a symbol for
the mass audience’s preference for mindless
entertainment.
In its show, the chicken picks numbers 22 and
11. That is an intertextual reference to Chapter
and Verse of The Book of Revelations (22:11):
“Let the one who does wrong continue to do
wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let
the one who does right continue to do right; and
let the holy person continue to be holy.”, which
ironically provides a moral to the resolution of
the story.
The short film Meal Ticket is story conceived as
a symbolic narrative. Every character and event
bears a deep symbolic meaning. Additionally,
the narrative uses a number of intertextual
references from Romantic poetry (Shelley’s
Ozymandias) and Shakespeare’s Sonnets and
dramas (The Merchant of Venice and The
Tempest) ,to mythological literature (the Old
Testament’s Genesis and New Testament’s
Book of Revelations, the first and last books of
the Bible) as well as political texts (Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address)