Five major codes

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The analytic structure Barthes’ creates in S/Z are the five major codes. Neither the number nor the type of codes that Barthes applies in his analysis of Sarrasine are meant to be seen as prescriptive for all texts. A different reader might define different codes; those chosen and described by Barthes are merely one reader’s reading. Any reader’s interpretations of a text can change an infinite number of times and every reader may have a different interpretation. That said, Barthes defines the five codes with which he analyzes Sarrasine quite precisely.

Hermeneutic Code

The hermeneutic code is associated with enigma. Elements of the text that contribute to the hermeneutic codes are the devices which put forth, define, and then slowly reveal or solve a mystery. When Barthes identifies an element of this variety in the text he marks it HER. He then numbers the enigma and describes the place in the movement toward disclosure (whether the lexia presents, complicates or solves the enigma it presents), and then a description of the enigma in question. The process of revealing truth by solving enigmas is further broken down in chapter XXXVII: The Hermeneutic Sentence. Barthes suggests that “‘well-made’” sentences work similarly and can be seen as a microcosm of the hermeneutic code: the sentence is “the proposition of truth” . . . [which] contains a subject (theme of the enigma), a statement of the question (formulation of the enigma), its question mark (proposal of the enigma), various subordinate and interpolated clauses and catalyses (delays in the answer), all of which precede the ultimate predicate (disclosure).” (84) Because the hermeneutic code involves a move from from a question to an answer it is one of the five codes which Barthes calls “irreversible.” Once a secret is revealed, it cannot be unrevealed—the moment of cognition is permanent for the reader.

Semic Code

The semic code is primarily metonymic. Barthes says that “the seme is the unit of the signifier.” (17) This code focuses upon the pieces of data the text provides in order to suggest abstract concepts. For example, the mention of “party,” “Faubourg,” and “mansion” are all semes for the abstract concept “Wealth.” The semic code allows the text to “show” instead of “tell” by describing material things in order to suggest immaterial ones.

Proairetic Code

The proairetic code is closely related to the text’s narrative structure. The basis of the proairetic is the dependency of the lexias upon both sequence and content to impart meaning. Barthes says that “setting up a sequence of actions is to name it.” (261) This notion is connected with Barthes notion of the “readerly” text. The action or plot of the novel is created by the reader who assimilates distinct pieces of information in a prescribed order. The reader groups these pieces of data by turning them into events. Even acts of introspection are classified by the reader in terms of the occurrence of movements or activities. Thus, the proairetic code pictures the text as a location with spatial and temporal dimensions through which the reader moves.

Symbolic Code

The symbolic code is the most interpretable. It exists to explain the complexities of an element of the text. One of the most important entrance points into the symbolic is the antithetical because concepts suggest their opposites. But the symbolic code does not merely break the code into binaries; instead it eradicates the boundary between opposites creating a “disturbance in classification.” (215) This transgression creates an “unrestrained metonymy” (216) within the text. An unrestrained metonymy is, however, nearly equivalent to a nonexistent one because it “abolishes the power of legal substitution on which meaning is based.” (216) That is to say, the symbolic code is the point where multiple meanings can be read into the same lexia, so that the text produces no definitive meaning.

Cultural Code

The cultural code is, perhaps, the most straightforward of the five. It is constituted by the points at which the text refers to common bodies of knowledge. By referencing easily-indentified traditions could be scholarly, historical, mythological or stereotypical.

Voices

The five codes together constitute a way of interpreting the text which suggests that textuality is interpretive; that the codes are not superimposed upon the text, but, rather, approximate something that is intrinsic to the text. The analogy Barthes uses to clarify the relationship of codes to text is to the relationship between a performance and the commentary that can be heard off-stage. In the “stereographic space” created by the codes, each code becomes associated with a voice. To the proairetic code Barthes assigns the Voice of Empirics; to the semic the Voice of the Person; to the cultural the Voice of Science; to the hermeneutic the Voice of Truth; and to the symbolic the Voice of Symbol.

Bibliography

Allen, Graham. Roland Barthes. London: Routledge, 2003. (book)

Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. New York: Hill and Wang, 1967. trans. Annette Lavers.

Barthes, Roland. S/Z. New York: Hill and Wang, 1974. trans. Richard Miller.

Culler, Jonathan D. Barthes. London : Fontana Paperbacks, 1983. (book)

Kritzman, Lawrence D. "Barthesian Free Play" (in Death-Defying Texts) Yale French Studies, No. 66, The Anxiety of Anticipation. (1984), pp. 189-210. (journal article)

Lambert, Deborah G. "S/Z: Barthes' Castration Camp and the Discourse of Polarity." Modern Language Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3. (Summer, 1986), pp. 161-171. (journal article)

Middleton, Tim. Modernism: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. London : Routledge, 2003. (book)

North, Michael, "Authorship and Autography," in Theories and Methodologies. PMLA, Vol. 116, No. 5. (Oct., 2001), pp. 1377-1385. (journal article)

Petrey, Sandy. "Castration, Speech Acts, and the Realist Difference: S/Z versus Sarrasine" PMLA, Vol. 102, No. 2. (Mar., 1987), pp. 153-165.

Rosenthal, Peggy. "Deciphering S/Z." College English, Vol. 37, No. 2. (Oct., 1975), pp. 125-144. (journal article)

Scholes, Robert E. "Semiotics and Interpretation" New Haven : Yale University Press, 1982. (p. 99-104) (for a chapter which applies Barthes' five codes to James Joyce's story "Eveline.")