Structuralists such as de Saussure and Barthes

Words differently arranged have different meanings, and meanings differently arranged have a different effect.

- Blaise Pascal

de Saussure, Barthes, Lévi-Strauss and Derrida all took an interesting exploring underlying structures that give meaning, but using the hermeutics of language, and specifically, the relational aspect of language. De Saussure explored the underlying structure of language. Barthes looked at the underlying structure of expression, its use of symbols that are manipulated by the many different facets of media.

de Saussure dissected language through grammar - how language is used - but did so in a static manner. For him, a sign (and its ‘network of connections’) was composed of the sign (the signified + the signifier), which equaled the thing agreed upon. De Saussure limited himself just to the sign and its signifier, and chose to ignore what I would call context, what Terry Eagleton calls ‘referent’ (Leitch 2000: 959). It is that to which the signifier is referring.

Barthes took de Saussure’s equation a step further. For him, the visual symbol, in which is embedded the signified + the signifier, equals the thing agreed upon – that is then further used the basis for ‘myth’.

It would seem that for Barthes, myth is created for and used as Marx’s ‘opiate for the masses’. It gives ‘the masses’ something to rally around, a symbol to stand behind, something in which they can claim identity. How?

The ‘visual’ is broadcast to the public by the many facets of the media. The symbolism (signifier) of the symbol (the visual object that is signified) says ‘this is what the symbol means’ and ‘this is who you are’.

What Barthes today points out seems mundane and obvious. In the 1950s, however, in the midst of the transition and transformation taking place, it is easy to understand how his insight was groundbreaking, particularly in light of his conviction that the ‘new’, the ‘modern’ is what ‘society experiences as cathartic’.

A question remains, though. Barthes speaks of ‘readerly’ and ‘writerly’ texts. The latter is more challenging, and also like a fetish in the pleasure that it gives. But is this seen from the writer’s point of view, because he is the one apportioning meaning to the words used? Whereas, with a ‘readerly’ text, there is no challenge as the words are not used outside their agreed upon meaning. This is the question….

Bibliography

Leitch, Vincent B. 2001

Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.