Introducing Barthes E-Book

Philip Thody

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: Graphic Guides
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 104

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

INTRODUCING guide to the cult author, semiologist and analyzer of advertising, Roland Barthes. Roland Barthes is best known as a semiologist, a student of the science of signs. This sees human beings primarily as communicating animals, and looks at the way they use language, clothes, gestures, hair styles, visual images, shapes and colour to convey to one another their tastes, their emotions, their ideal self-image and the values of their society. Introducing Barthes brilliantly elucidates Barthes' application of these ideas to literature, popular culture, clothes and fashion, and explains why his thinking in this area made him a key figure in the structuralist movement of the 1960s. It goes on to describe how his later insistence on pleasure, the delights of sexual non-conformity, and the freedom of the reader to interpret literary texts in the light of ideologies such as existentialism, Marxism and Freudianism, as well as structuralism itself, continues to make him one of the most dynamic and challenging of modern writers. This is the perfect companion volume to Introducing Semiotics.

Leseprobe

Published by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP Email: [email protected]

ISBN: 978-184831-204-3

Text copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd

Illustrations copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd

The author and illustrator has asserted their moral rights

Originating editor: Richard Appignanesi

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

“I Have a Question to Ask ...”

Mythologies

“It’s Natural”

All-In Wrestling

Performance

Introduction to Structural Linguistics

How Do Words Mean?

Nature or Structure?

Conventions of Performance

Meaning and Differences

Seeing is Believing?

Knowing It Is Different

Art and Reality

Mystery in the Macbeth Household

Elements of Semiology

Iconic, Motivated and Arbitrary Signs

A World Immersed in Language

Taboos

Beyond Saussure: Post-Structuralism

Barthes and Derrida

Nothing More Natural

Reading the Elements

System and Speech

Semiology of Fashion

Codes and Conventions

Taboos on Clothes

(Un)Conscious (Self-)Image

The Semiology of Everyday Life

Sartre’s Concept of “Bad Faith”

Understanding Barthes in Context

Barthes and Brecht

Brecht’s “Distancing Effect”

Against Clarity

Against Realism

Is There a Natural Style?

Origins of a Dramatic Contest

The Sorbonne and its Rival

The Racine Business

Understanding Racine

Totem and Taboo

Goldmann’s View of Racine

The Motive of Jansenism

Mauron’s Freudian View

The Orphan Jansenist

Love, Hate and Rebellion

An Obsessive Pattern

Gramsci’s Theory of Hegemony

“I am not a literary critic ...”

The Death of the Author

Irrelevance of a Writer’s Life

Contre Sainte-Beuve

S/Z, 1970

Three Views on Fiction

The Mimetic Illusion

The Story of Sarrasine

Sade, Fourier, Loyola

Logothetes

Sade, Sadeanism

Capturing the Sign of Divinity

Inventing Harmony

Talents of Societary Man

Mealtimes in Harmony

Sex

A New Programme for Literature

Barthes, the Hedgehog

Outsider or Insider?

Language and Literature

Barthes Visits Japan

Japanese Poetry, Food and Sex

Writing as Intransitive

A Childhood Snapshot

On Photography

Longing and Love

Against the Dominant Ideologies

The Importance of Money

A Tradition of Explanation

Sensual Production

The Death of Barthes

Further Reading

Author’s Warning to Students of Barthes

Acknowledgements

Biographies

Index

“I Have a Question to Ask ...”

In 1975, when he was 62, Roland Barthes asked ...

WHO DOES NOT FEEL HOW NATURAL IT IS IN FRANCE TO BE CATHOLIC, MARRIED, AND ACADEMICALLY WELL QUALIFIED?

Since he was himself a Protestant, a homosexual and had never taken a doctorate, his question was obviously an ironic and personal comment on himself.

More importantly, however, it underlined two of the main concerns running through the whole of his work: the need to distinguish between nature and culture; and the care we need to take in the correct use of words.

Mythologies

For Barthes, one of the greatest mistakes modern society makes is to think that its institutions and intellectual habits are good because they are in keeping with what is popularly called “the nature of things”.

The second mistake is to see language as a natural phenomenon rather than a set of conventional signs. What Barthes wanted to do, as he said when discussing his aims in his best-known book, Mythologies (1957), was to “destroy the idea that signs are natural” (battre en brèche la naturalité du signe).

FOR THERE IS, AS THE OBVIOUS IRONY OF BARTHES’ QUESTION REMINDS US, NOTHING NATURAL ABOUT ONE’S RELIGION, ONE’S MARITAL STATUS OR ONE’S ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS. THEY ARE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS, GIVEN TO US BY OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER HUMAN BEINGS, AND MEANINGFUL ONLY IN THE SOCIETY IN WHICH WE HAPPEN TO LIVE.

There is nothing natural about being a married Catholic with a lot of university degrees, and probably a lot of children as well. It is merely a statistical accident, a way of conforming which we owe to our birth and upbringing.

SOMEONE WHO, LIKE ME, WORKED AS A UNIVERSITY TEACHER, BUT WHO HAPPENED TO HAVE LIVED IN 19TH-CENTURY OXFORD, WOULD HAVE LOST HIS JOB IF HE HAD MARRIED. AND WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN APPOINTED IN THE FIRST PLACE IF HE HAD BEEN A ROMAN CATHOLIC!

“It’s Natural”

It is also a mistake, and a very frequent one, to use the word “natural” when we mean either socially acceptable, morally desirable or aesthetically pleasing – or, quite frequently, all three. The French radio station EUROPE 1 did this when it issued motorists with a sticker to put into the back of their car with an advertising slogan on it which read EUROPE 1, c’est naturel.

IT’S CERTAINLY NATURAL TO EAT, TO SLEEP, TO MAKE LOVE AND TO USE LANGUAGE. BUT WHAT WE EAT, WHEN WE SLEEP, HOW WE MAKE LOVE AND WHAT KIND OF WORDS WE USE VARIES ACCORDING TO THE SOCIETY AND CLASS TO WHICH WE BELONG.

It is no more natural to listen to one radio station rather than another, just as it is no more natural to eat potatoes rather than spaghetti, to speak German rather than Hindi, or to prefer the theatre to the cinema.

It may well make life easier for us, if we live in a society like that of middle-class France, if we get married in church and work hard to pass examinations. But there is nothing natural about it.

IF I HAD BEEN BORN IN THE TROBRIAND ISLANDS BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN EQUALLY NATURAL FOR ME TO HAVE HAD LOTS OF SEXUAL PARTNERS AND NEVER TO HAVE LEARNED TO READ OR WRITE.

All-In Wrestling

Most of the essays in Mythologies (1957) first appeared in newspaper form, many of them in the wartime Resistance publication Combat, whose first editor had been Albert Camus (1913–60). Although the essay “Le monde où l’on catche” (The world of all-in wrestling) was too long for a newspaper article, it does fit in with this aspect of Barthes’ work by talking about a popular, non-intellectual activity.

IT IS PROBABLE THAT IN THE FRANCE OF THE 1950S, MORE PEOPLE ATTENDED ALL-IN WRESTLING MATCHES THAN WERE IN THE HABIT OF READING NOVELS OR GOING TO THE THEATRE.

Barthes’ essay is the best introduction to what he also thought went on in the mind of the reader of fiction or the play-goer.

Barthes points out, at the very beginning, that there is a fundamental difference between all-in wrestling and a genuine sport such as boxing or tennis.

IN BOXING, THE CONTESTANTS ARE REALLY HITTING ONE ANOTHER, AND BOTH ARE TRYING TO WIN. ALTHOUGH THERE MAY BE SOME CASES WHERE A BOXER HAS DECIDED TO THROW THE FIGHT, THIS IS RELATIVELY RARE, AND IS NOT CENTRAL TO THE SPORT. IN COMMERCIALLY ORGANIZED ALL-IN WRESTLING, IN CONTRAST, THE SITUATION IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT. IT IS NOT A GENUINE FIGHT, AND IT IS EASY TO SEE WHY.

Whereas professional boxers fight, at the outside, once every three months, all-in wrestlers give several performances a week. They make no attempt to hide this fact, and it is quite easy to follow them round as they go from town to town to give their performance ...

Performance

And the word “performance” is the only way to describe what they do.

Moreover, Barthes argues, and this point is central to his argument, the audience itself knows it is all pretence.

Nobody is fooled; just as nobody was but the naive Victorian lady who leapt to her feet and shouted:

FOR IF THEY WERE REALLY DOING WHAT THEY ARE PRETENDING TO DO, THEY WOULD DO SUCH DAMAGE TO ONE ANOTHER THAT THEY COULD NOT POSSIBLY DO IT NIGHT AFTER NIGHT IN DIFFERENT TOWNS. YOU GREAT, BIG, BLACK, FAT FOOL, CAN’T YOU SEE?

... when Othello was being driven into torments of jealousy by Iago.

This is why Barthes argues that the attitude of the spectator at an all-in wrestling match is so much like that of the reader of a novel or the spectator at a play. We all know, if we think about it for a moment, that there never was a David Copperfield or an Emma Bovary, and that it is all made up.

We know that the man playing Othello is not really a Moorish general in 16th-century Venice. He may not, now that it is normal to have a black actor playing the part, be covered in boot polish in the way that Laurence Olivier used to be. But he is not Othello, and he is not really murdering Desdemona; just as Giant Haystacks is not really trying to kill the Man in the Mask in an access of blind fury which leads him, apparently, to throw him onto the canvas from a great height and jump on him with all his massive weight.

IT IS ALL A QUESTION OF USING SIGNS; AND OF SIGNS WHICH HAVE NO ACTUAL CONTENT.

Introduction to Structural Linguistics

In literature, to use the technical terms of the structural linguistics conceived by the Swiss linguistician Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), there is no signifié (= signified) to which the signs refer back, no guaranteeing centre of ultimate truth which makes the signs work in the way they do.

IN THE PAST, THE VALUE OF THE POUND STERLING WAS GUARANTEED BY THE GOLD IN THE BANK OF ENGLAND, THAT OF THE DOLLAR IN THE VAULTS OF FORT KNOX. NOW, ALL IT DEPENDS ON ULTIMATELY IS THE BELIEF WHICH PEOPLE HAVE IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE BRITISH OR AMERICAN ECONOMY.

In this respect, Barthes’ essay on all-in wrestling is an application to popular culture of the theories of Saussure. For Saussure, the crucial distinction to be made when discussing language is between the sign and the thing signified – or as he put it in French, between le signe et le signifié.

THE LATTER, THE THING WE ARE TALKING ABOUT, REMAINS CONSTANT FROM ONE SOCIETY TO ANOTHER. BUT THE LINGUISTIC SIGNS WE USE TO REFER TO THINGS DIFFER FROM ONE LANGUAGE TO ANOTHER.

How Do Words Mean?

A cow is the same, whether in England or France. But vache is not the same word as cow, and it is not some inner relationship between the words une vache and the animal in the field that makes them mean a cow, any more than it (the cud-chewing animal in the field) stands as a kind of guarantee that the letters c-o-w will always designate that beast and no other.

THERE IS NO QUALITY SUCH AS “VACHERIE” OR “COWNESS” WHICH ENSURES THAT UNE VACHE MEANS A COW. JUST AS THERE IS NO “COWNESS” THAT ENSURES THAT THE WORD COW HAS THE SAME MEANING IN ENGLISH.

Words work in the way they do because of the place they have in the structure of the language, because they are different from one another and fit into a particular pattern.

Similarly, the gestures of the all-in wrestlers mean something, but not because of what the wrestlers themselves think or feel, which is probably something like...

I’M GETTING WELL PAID FOR THIS, BUT I’D MUCH RATHER BE WITH MY GIRL OR HAVING A DRINK WITH MY MATES.

The gestures derive their meaning from the conventions by which human beings have learned to express their own emotions and to understand those of other people.

Nature or Structure?

The wrestlers’ gestures seem to be natural, in the same way as it seems to us natural to speak in English.

BUT ALL FORMS OF COMMUNICATION ARE ARTIFICIAL, SINCE ALL OF THEM WORK BECAUSE OF A STRUCTURE. THE STRUCTURE CAN WORK ONLY BECAUSE WE LIVE IN SOCIETY AND NOT IN A STATE OF NATURE.

Not only, according to Saussure, is there nothing at all natural about signs, but they are also essentially arbitrary. Barthes’ essay on all-in wrestling is a convincing statement of this view.

AT FIRST SIGHT, WE MIGHT SAY, ON WATCHING AN ALL-IN WRESTLING MATCH, IT IS ALL NATURAL, IN THE SENSE THAT WHAT WE CALL BRUTE VIOLENCE IS NATURAL. IN FACT, WE COME TO REALIZE THAT IT IS ALL CAREFULLY, NOT TO SAY IMPECCABLY, CODED… JUST AS A SET OF SEMAPHORE SIGNALS IS CODED OR THE ANTICS OF A TICKTACK MAN AT A RACE COURSE ARE PART OF AN ELABORATE CODE.

Conventions of Performance

At times, the moves made by the wrestlers are even like a strange ballet, a carefully choreographed performance in which all the conventional signs for anger, frustration, vengeance and ultimate triumph are presented in a way which the wrestlers know that the audience will both understand and appreciate.

THERE ARE EVEN SPECIFIC CONVENTIONS, SUCH AS THE ONE WHEREBY A WRESTLER HELD ON THE CANVAS BY AN APPARENTLY EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL ARM-LOCK INDICATES THAT HE IS NOT GOING TO GIVE UP. I BEAT THE CANVAS WITH THE FLAT OF MY HAND!

If the conventions allowed it, and this was what the spectators were used to, he could indicate the same determination by pulling his left ear or shouting “God save Ireland!”