Seminar

A study of the five codes, as proposed by Roland Barthes in his S/Z (1970), in the short story A Wedding Gift by Guy de Maupassant. Poststructuralism is concerned with disrupting or deconstructing the perceived unity of a textunity in terms of meaning and structure. Post structuralism departs from structuralism in this that while the structuralists studied individual narratives (texts) in order to understand the underlying pattern of all narratives, what they refer to as the grammar of the text; the Post structuralists did away with structures altogether and instead tried to show how a narrative constantly breaches its own borders. A text exists in relation to and in difference from other texts so that there is no single meaning of a text but instead what we have is a multitude of meanings. They were concerned in other words about the textuality of the text. Post Structuralists advocate a writerly' approach to the study of narrative rather than a readerly one. A text should not be closed by assigning a single meaning to it but rather it should be kept open giving rise to a multitude of meanings. Roland Barthes in his seminal work S/Z (1970) does a post structuralist analysis of Balzacs short story Sarrasine and demonstrates how a text opens up to a multitude of possible meanings. He breaks up the text into many fragments which he refers to as reading units or Lexias. According to Barthes all narratives share certain structural features that are interwoven differently within individual narratives. He terms these organizational features as Codes which play a key role in our understanding of the text. He primarily identifies five codes which are- Hermeneutic code, Proairetic code, Semic code, Symbolic code and Cultural code. He studies the particular lexia in relation to the five codes and tries to bring out the multiple meanings and connotations in a text. Using Guy de Maupassants short story A Wedding Gift as an instance, this paper attempts to explain how these five codes operate in the text. Hermeneutic and Proairetic Code: The hermeneutic and proairetic codes are concerned with the temporal order of the narrative. They are the driving forces in a narrative that arrests the attention of the reader from beginning till end. Hermeneutic code primarily deals with those aspects in a narrative which raises questions in the mind of the reader (questions like who? what? where? when? why? etc) for which he/she

thereafter proceeds to seek answers. For instance, in the short story, A Wedding Gift, the very title of the essay raises the question as to what is the wedding gift, the answer to which is not revealed until the last line of the story. The narrator by withholding this information manages to hold the attention of the reader till the end. The first sentence in the story, For a long time Jacques Bourdillere had sworn that he would never marry, but he suddenly changed his mind Immediately raising the question as to why he suddenly changed his mind? Another instance of hermeneutic code that creates a moment of suspense in the narrative is when Jacques, the protagonist of the story, receives a letter on the night of his wedding. We are told of the letter and the tension it creates in the mind of the Jacques and in turn in the mind of the reader. Jacques, trembling, took this paper, overwhelmed by a vague and sudden fear, the mysterious terror of swift misfortune. The situation raises a question in the mind of the reader as to why is he terrified on seeing the letter when previously he simply used to tear it off, which leads us to seek the cause. By withholding the content of the letter the narrator manages to prolong our anticipation. He looked for a longtime at the envelope, the writing on which he did not know, not daring to open it, not wishing to read it, with a wild desire to put it in his pocket and say to himself: Ill leave that till to-morrow, when Im far away! But one corner two big words, underlined, very urgent, filled him with terror. Note that another technique the narrator uses is reducing the pace of narration. By stretching the moment, it is further prolonged and the suspense is enhanced. The narrator withholds the secret to the maximum, so much so that we are told about it only little after Jacques himself comes to know of it. Proairetic code deals with the action in the narrative. It also produces anticipation in the mind of reader in terms of how a particular action will arrive at its resolution. In the narrative there are two major scenes of action. The first scene ends with Jacques being informed about the critical condition of his ex-girlfriend who has just given birth to his child and him rushing off to the hospital. The immediate question that rises in the mind is what he is going to do next. Will he leave his newly wedded wife? Further as the scene shifts from the hospital back to the

house, in which he returns home with his baby, the reader is haunted by questions as to what will be the reaction of his wife. Will she accept him or reject him? Will her family accept him and the baby after they taking so long to grant him her hand? Both the hermeneutic and proairetic code holds the attention of the reader first by raising questions and then by anticipation of the actions resolution. A reader will be satisfied only when the loose-ends of the narrative are tied. By extending the hermeneutic and proairetic the narrator keeps the text open till the end. Semic/Semantic Code: It refers to those elements in the text that carries additional meaning by way of connotation. By connotation here Barthes does not mean free- association of meanings drawn from external contexts but those special meanings that the words acquire from the inherent textual context. In the story the word letter acquires a certain connotation. The letter appears at the beginning of the narrative as a distraction when Jacques tries to prove his devotion towards Berthe by cutting off his relationship with his long time girl friend. She wrote him letters which he never opened. Every week he would recognize the clumsy writing of the abandoned woman, and every week a greater anger surged within him against her, and he would quickly tear the envelope Later in the story when the letter is brought to Jacques on his wedding night the reader is partially informed as to what is about to come as the reader begins to associate, as the narrative moves, that the letter connotes his girlfriend. The letter here therefore acts as the semic code as it is connotative of his ex-girlfriend and helps to proceed the narration without having to explain every time that the letter is from his ex-girlfriend. The reader automatically comes to assume it. Symbolic code: The symbolic code refers to the deeper structural principles around which the narrative is organized. The often operate by means of binaries and antithesis. The entire narrative in this case is structured on the male-female (here Jacques- Berthe/Ravet), love-lust, wife-mistress binaries. The narrative works with certain stereotypical images for instance, Jacques, the hero, is a typical male who keeps off from commitment and prefers to lead a loose sexual life before he meets Berthe, the epitome of ideal woman- with sweet mind, so simple and good, as fresh as her cheeks and lips- who lives a secure, protected life . He is redeemed of his sins in her presence. The behavior of the characters are also very much in keeping with these binaries

as you can gather the from the girls reaction to the wedding (one of he few times when we perceive her presence). She sat there with a dreamy look, feeling a little lost at this great change in her life, but smiling, moved, ready to cry, often almost ready to faint from joy, believing the whole world to be changed by what had just happened to her, uneasy, she knew not why The narrative by emphasizing Jacques act of redeeming himself in the name of his love for Berthe overshadows the other side of the story where he abandons a young woman. The role assigned to the women in the narrative is either that of a wife or a mistress, both undoubtedly devoted to the man they love. The narrative discourse is structured around these binaries and the narrator at no points tries to trample with them. However the whole narrative comes to be seen under a new light when you grasp the irony inherent in the title A Wedding Gift. Cultural code: It refers to those aspects in the story that form part of a shared body of knowledge. It therefore consists of references beyond the text to what is considered as common knowledge (say medical, physical, physiological, literary, history etc). The description of setting where the wedding takes place- the large parlor, Japanese Boudoir hung with bright silks, large colored lantern hanging from the sealing etc inform you of the characters affluent background which otherwise is not mentioned in explicit terms. More over the use of the medical term hemorrhage is part of the shared knowledge which the narrator assumes that the reader will know. By means of these codes, which are interwoven in the narrative, Barthes demonstrates how a text is replete with voices instead of a single voice. This paper merely demonstrates how the codes can be identified within a single text. When we study a each lexia in relation to the five codes as demonstrated above what we get is a whole galaxy of meanings.