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Kodie Warnell

Comm302: Rhetorical Theory

Dr. Chase

15 December 2020

Barthes and Storytelling in Images

Being a theater major at Wheaton, of course, also means being a communications major.

It means taking acting classes as well as theory classes and being an artist as well as an

academic. This has felt difficult when my brain is pulled in (what feels like) two different

directions but it’s also been illuminating when studying one gives me a better understanding of

the other. A specific example of this occurred when Mark Lewis, one of my acting professors,

once said something along the lines of “One way to be a better actor is to go out and live.” What

he meant by this is that personal experience makes acting easier and often better. It’s one thing

pretending to know what it’s like to be a mother, a wife, or a retail worker but it’s another to feel

your newly born baby against your chest, skin to skin, and feel a type of love that you’ve never

even imagined, to stay fully committed to the clearly imperfect person on the other side of your

bed, though the spark went out years ago and the only time spent together is the few tired hours

after work and before bed, or to take the brunt of anger from an unsatisfied customer at 7:30 AM

though you were not the one who put their order into the system wrong or the one to institute a

nationwide company policy that makes returns impossible after 30 days.

How does this apply to rhetoric? It means finding a little bit of artistic gold in an

academic treasure chest; It means that just like how going out and experiencing the world has

and will benefit me in my acting, so has studying rhetorical theory benefited me in my theater

education. I’ve learned from my COMM 201 textbook about how nonverbal communication can
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be more persuasive than verbal communication and carried that understanding with me onto the

stage as I played Smee in Peter and the Starcatcher, persuading the audience to believe I was my

character by how I walked, jumped, and made facial expressions. I’ve learned how African

American speakers like Martin Luther King Jr. have used the rhythm of a speech with its

articulations, pauses, and breaths to keep their audience engaged from Dr. Hill and implement

this understanding into my monologue work from modern or Shakespearean text. Most recently

though, as I’ve spent time in this class, I’ve gained even more from rhetorical theorists to transfer

into rehearsal space. And it is this newly learned information about visual rhetoric specifically

that, for a visual artist, begs the question: how can images tell stories? To help answer this, I will

be stepping off the stage and entering into a conversation with the French theorist, Roland

Barthes.

Similarly to myself, Barthes was interested in the artistic aspects of life as well as the

academic. What intrigued him was the ability of photography to capture and communicate real

moments of time even after the moments themselves had ended. An article from New World

Encyclopedia put it like this, “[Barthes] considered the photograph to have a unique potential for

presenting a completely real representation of the world.” Furthering this idea in his research

from the 1950s, he wrote many articles on ‘myth’ which introduced the notion that a

photographic image could hold more than mere representations of people, places, or things, but

could also hold meaning. In other words, as he looked at a photograph of his mother, he realized

that his place as her son--as someone with a relationship with her--made him see more than just a

human; he saw Henriette Barthes, his dear mother. Furthermore, he realized that a picture is more

than just a snapshot of ‘what is’ or ‘what was.’ It is, at the same time, a vessel of subjective

cultural, political, and personal meaning. All that being said, it is clear that to Barthes, any
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photograph holds meaning because of the elements captured inside of it. The question we will

discuss over the next few pages is how? How is it that a simple photograph or image can

communicate meaning to anyone who looks at it? More specifically, how can an image tell a

story? To help answer this question, we now will turn to one of Barthes’ essays from 1979,

Rhetoric of the Image.

Barthe begins his essay by bringing up what he calls “the most important problem facing

the semiology of images” (p. 32). This problem he poses in a question: “[C]an analogical

representation (the ‘copy’) produce true systems of signs and not merely simple agglutinations of

symbols?” (p. 32). In simpler terms, he asks if images can be more than just a vessel of the signs

(containers of meaning) within them. Could the signs within an image create work together in

such a way as to create new signs, not just a regurgitation of the symbols within it? Or even more

plainly put, do the relationships between the signs (also known as sign systems) produce other

signs? Thus, Barthes introduces another topic into the conversation: the meaning of signs, also

known as semiology. Therefore, to answer the question of sign creation or reproduction, we must

address the meaning of the signs within images. That is to say that the question then becomes:

can the signs within an image or photograph bring forth a meaning that is more than a mere

linguistic meaning? To answer this, Barthes chooses to investigate an advertisement since

signification within advertising is purposely arranged or filled with meaning(s). They are, as he

puts it, “undoubtedly intentional” (p. 33).

The advertisement he chooses is one from Panzani, as shown in Figure 1. In the

advertising image, viewers see a bunch of ingredients (pasta, tomatoes, onions, peppers,

mushrooms, what appears to be bagged parmesan cheese, and a tin of sauce) all in or falling out

of a stringed bag that’s half-opened. The colors in the photograph are all shades of red, green,
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white, or yellow and besides the Panzani labels on the packaged food, the only words inserted

into the ‘natural’ picture are: “PATES. SAUCE. PARMESAN. A L’ITALIENNE DE LUXE.” It

is these words that form the first message the advertisement gives its viewers, says Barthes. To

understand the caption, he states that the only knowledge a viewer needs is a knowledge of

French and of writing itself. Yet, these words can be broken down further, Barthes argues, since

the sign Panzani is not just a name of a company but also a ‘signified’ element of what he calls

“Italianicity” (p. 33). In other words, Barthes argues that with the Italian sounding name Panzani,

this brand name has a meaning to it. Thus, he states, “The linguistic message,” that is all of the

written words within the image, “is thus twofold… denotational and connotational” (p. 33).

Figure 1. Panzani advertisement.

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Going back to the non-linguistic elements of this image, also known as the ‘iconic’

message, Barthes points out that there is an idea (or story, I would say) of a return from a market

or store because of a carrying bag of fresh, spilling-out ingredients. Furthermore, Barthes

identifies this story as a ‘signified’ which he contrasts with a ‘signifier.’ The latter term refers to

the literal object or element: in this case, the bag of groceries is being shown as a literal bag of

groceries. The prior term, the ‘signified,’ refers to the meaning of the bag of groceries (notice

how these terms are interchangeable with denotative and connotative). Thus, Barthes argues that

one signified in this image is the story of a return from a market. Together, though, the signifier

of the grocery bag and the way it is being used to convey meaning as a signifier make up a new

sign. Another example of this signifier and signified duo comes again from this notion of

Italianicity. In an almost redundant format, Barthes argues that the color scheme in the image

holds the same colors that are in the Italian flag and the food elements are foods typical of Italian

dishes. This is also described by one critic who states, “First, there is the level of denotation

consisting of the brand name and logo design. This has pure informational value—it allows

viewers to recognize the pasta, should they desire to buy it. However, the name also works at a

different semiotic level, since it assigns an aura of “Italianicity” to the whole ad text. Connected

to this is the symbolism of the tomato and the other ingredients visible in the ad, which implies

Italian cuisine and its supposed superiority— a meaning reinforced by the caption (‘à l’italienne

de luxe’)” (Danesi, 2017). Yet, Barthes adds something interesting here. This sign requires a

certain kind of knowledge or familiarity with stereotypes of Italian culture to gain the signified

of this sign. Therefore, as Barthes puts frankly, “[T]he knowledge on which this sign depends is

heavily cultural” (p. 35). Now, this brings up a second point; not everyone who looks at this

image will pull from it the same meaning if they do not share the same cultural understanding of
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Italy. Thus, just as Barthes found personal meaning in looking at a picture of his mother, so

individuals can gain or not gain meaning from an image based on their understanding of cultural

or societal meanings and their place in their own cultures and societies.

However, Barthes also notes that we can even go deeper in our understanding of the

iconic signifiers and signifieds by investigating how the linguistic message interacts with them.

To this, he states that there are two functions with these interactions: one of anchorage and

another of relay. For anchorage, he believes that the author, or person who chose to attach the

caption to the image, has a kind of control over the reader that points them to what they are to

gather from the image. In Barthes words, he writes that in anchorage, "the text directs the reader

through the signifieds of the image...remote-control[ing] him towards a meaning chosen in

advance" (p. 40). Something interesting to note that he also addresses is that the text can be

repressive of the meanings within the image in that it provides a ‘right’ way to interpret the

image. Thus, going back to the Panzani ad, the French caption that can be translated as “the

luxury of Italy” gives the reader several ideas. One being that fresh produce from the market and

Panzani’s food are the ways to have a luxurious Italian meal. The function of relay for the

linguistic message within the image is mere description. Barthes states that in relay, “text… and

image stand in a complementary relationship...and the unity of the message is realized at [the]

level of the story, the anecdote, the diegesis” (p. 41). In other words, the message of the image is

best understood through the caption making sense of the signs in the photo and the photo making

sense of the signs; they ‘bounce off’ of each other to express their joint meaning. And in most

cases, such as in the Panzani advertisement, there is a combination of anchorage and relay at

play. Therefore, to summarize, Barthes points out that the linguistic message and the iconic
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messages within an image can be separated for definition purposes but they function in such a

way that new meaning or further meaning, is produced from their collaboration.

The last part of his essay to mention is the idea of coded or non-coded messages.

According to my understanding, Barthes uses these terms to be almost interchangeable with the

terms denoted and connoted. Denoted/literal messages do not have a code or ‘meaning’ and thus

are non-coded. Connoted messages, on the other hand, are the messages with intended

meaning—ones with codes attached to them. What is important here is that Barthes remarks that

many critics have claimed that photography is denoted or non-coded since it can be the most

natural image form, but he disagrees. He states that even a ‘pure’ photograph—one with meaning

not purposely attached to it—may capture something in the here and now but will also capture

what existed in the past, even if it’s only a few seconds later. Therefore, in the least, even

‘natural’ photographs are connected/connoted/coded with the meaning of the past. For that

reason, Barthes argues that no image can be non-coded. Furthermore, though, he also raises one

last interesting point briefly mentioned earlier in this paper. He states, “The image, in its

connotation, is thus constituted by an architecture of signs drawn from a variable depth of

lexicons (of idiolects); each lexicon, no matter how ‘deep’, still being coded, if as is thought

today, the psyche itself is articulated like a language; indeed, the further one ‘descends’ into the

psychic depths of an individual, the more rarefied and the more classifiable the signs become…”

(p. 47). In other words, no image can be non-coded simply because of the complexity of each

human and how signs can mean different things to each of us because of individual differences

but also cultural, societal, political, etc. One critic puts it like this, “The thrust of Barthes's

discussion of denotation in these early essays is to demystify the notion of a "pure image"

divorced from signification by showing that denotation is always imbricated with connotations”
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(Oxman, 2010). Truly, we all come to images from different places, and thus what we gain from

an image will be different.

Going back to my original research question now, it is clear that Barthes gives us several

ways that images can tell stories. Through their denoted and connoted iconic messages, they can

reveal an event (like a return from a market), give eyes to literal objects in time and space (like a

tomato being shown as a tomato), create or further notions of meaning (like the colors of the

Italian flag producing an idea of “Italianicity”), and more. Then through the linguistic message,

the caption can reveal the purpose of the image/tell the story behind the use of all the signs that

make it up (like “the luxury of Italy” explaining the reason for fresh produce and a Panzani

label). Together, these non-coded and coded elements can tell the intended story from the creator

but also give the gift of individual, cultural, political, and ideological meaning because of the

personal differences of each person who comes to the image. So, how do images tell stories?

Simply put, Barthes helps us see that it is through the working of their linguistic, denoted iconic,

and connoted iconic messages and how individual audiences gain meaning from them.

Yet, one question remains: why is this important? As a theater maker, this means several

things for me. One being that visuals alone can tell a story/share meaning. A set with an

architecture of sharp lines and 90° angles can communicate a world of ‘strict-ness’ or absolutes

in a play. A light design with bright colors can help create a world of fun, fluidity, play, and even

loose movement. Just from these two examples, it becomes clear that the iconic elements of

theater can work hand-in-hand with the linguistic elements (the script) to tell the story and share

its meaning. And according to Barthes’ observations, audience members can even gain meanings

not intended by the playwright, director, designers, or actors because of their personal stories.

What may be just a light blue blouse worn by a character to one audience member, may be a shirt
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very similar to one a different audience’s grandmother wore and it may remind him/her of her.

Yet even culturally speaking, a light blue blouse may be a sign of prestige or power in some

places and amongst some people. Therefore, the meaning of a story in a piece of theater can be

portrayed through iconic signs just as much as the linguistic ones, and in fact, can work together

to produce or reveal even more meaning. Yet, of course, these findings from Barthes impact

more than just theater. They add to our understanding of advertising and photography as Barthes

points out but also of art, social media, decorations, fashion, architecture, and any other visual

thing. So how is this important to each of us? Well, his essay reveals that there is meaning all

around us, speaking to us in different ways because of our personal, political, societal, cultural,

ideological backgrounds and all we have to do is look.

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References

Barthes, R. (1977). Image, music, text: Rhetoric of the image. Hill and Wang.

Danesi, M. (2017). Visual rhetoric and semiotic. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of

Communication.

https://oxfordre.com/communication/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/ac

refore-9780190228613-e-43.

New World Encyclopedia. Roland Barthes. In NewWorldEncyclopedia.org encyclopedia.

Retrieved December, 9, 2020 from

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Roland_Barthes

Oxman, E. (2010). Sensing the image: Roland Barthes and the affect of the visual. SubStance,

39(2), 71-90. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40801076