A B O UPresentation

T B A RT H E Son

Roland Barthes was born in France in 1915.

Even before he attained the age of one, he lost his father, a
naval officer, during the World War I.
The family moved to the city of Bayonne where he was raised
by his mother, aunt, and grandmother.
Barthes was a brilliant student. He qualified himself for B.A
and M.A in French classical Literature, at the University of
Paris, despite his suffering from Tuberculosis and spending
long periods in sanatoria in isolation.
He taught French in France, Romania, and Egypt.

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 A B O U T B A RT H E S

In 1952 he joined The National Institute of Scientific Research

where he spent 6 years studying Lexicology and Sociology and
writing bi-monthly essays for a famous French magazine. The
anthology [Mythologies] became popular and saw the light of
the day in 1957.
He wrote these essays in order to dismantle the myths of
popular culture.
He exposed the business tricks in ads that made the general
public believe what they saw and heard to be true [myth].
Barthes knew little English but he taught great subjects through
French at Middlebury College.
In the 1960s he was exploring the fields of Semiology and
Structuralism, while chairing various faculty positions around2
France. (Continue)
 A B O U T B A RT H E S

 His works expressed his dissatisfaction of the traditional

style of literary criticism.
 He toured the US and Japan to deliver Invited lectures.
 In1975 he penned his autobiography titled ROLAND
BARTHES.
 In 1977, he chaired the Dept. of Semiology at the
College de France.
 In 1980 he was hit by a van while walking home through
the streets of Paris and within a month he succumbed
to the injuries.

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 B A RT H E S ‟ S E M I O L O G Y O R S E M I OT I C S

 Semiology or Semiotics is the study of signs, symbols, and their

interpretations, communication, and meaning-making.
 Barthes argues that in any language words do not have
inherent meanings and in fact the meanings are created by the
speakers.
 To Barthes, a “sign” may be a word, a phrase, a sentence, a
speech, a body language, a piece of art, a painting or anything
that indirectly conveys a special meaning that many cannot
understand.
 He speaks of Denotation and Connotation [literal or Dictionary
meaning of a word and possible interpreted meanings
respectively], the combination of which is a SIGN.
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 B A RT H E S ‟ S E M I O L O G Y O R S E M I OT I C S

 e.g: “Chair” means „a piece of furniture used for sitting on‟ [denotation].
But it also means „ the Head of a Dept / meeting/ organization‟. The
symbol “Rising sun” may stand for a particular political party and its
ideologies. The colours in a flag or in the brand of a product may mean
certain special things such as ideologies. For instance, RED may mean
„sacrifice‟ or „danger‟ or even „communism‟. “Jaguar” on a car bonnet may
mean „speed‟, „power‟, „efficiency‟, etc.

 His special term “Mythology” does not mean stories from ancient
kingdoms. To him a „myth‟ is a falsehood or „a deceptive one‟. It is a
carefully [cunningly?] designed „SIGN‟ [may be an object like soap,
toothpaste; a photograph, a phrase or a cunningly/ cleverly devised
caption, etc] that is capable of mystifying people or the general public (e.g:
Most of the You Tube captions that prompt you to watch the video) and
tricking them into believing something to be true. 5
 B A RT H E S ‟ S E M I O L O G Y O R S E M I OT I C S

He believed that Government, Manufacturers, Businessmen,

Advertisers, and others used myth, a special kind of language
or strategy to confound people and make them believe
certain things to be true. So „myth‟ makes what is cultural
[belief] seem „natural‟.

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 SIGNS

 Anything in culture that is capable of sending a

specific message can be a „sign‟.
 Words, sounds, paintings, a TV show, a film, a story, a
photograph or a You Tube video, body language or
anything can be a „sign‟.
 A “sign” is made up of 2 things, namely SIGNIFIER
[What we see or hear] and SIGNIFIED [ What we
think of it or understand].
 Sickle & Hammer [Form]---signifier [Denotation];
hidden meaning---Communism in China/ Maoism
[ signified / Connotation] (Continue)
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 SIGNS

Signifier + signified = SIGN

So a „sign‟ is what it looks like and what it really means.
A sign is, thus, the inseparable combination of „signifier‟
and „signified‟.
If somebody says, “you‟ve insulted the Crown”, it
actually means „You‟ve scant respect for „leader‟,
„power‟, „authority‟, and such like.
Thus, „signifier‟ is the form that we perceive through
our senses and „signified‟ is the meaning we associate
with it.
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 USES

Barthes‟ „Semiotics‟ helps us find the deeper

meanings in the utterances of people.
It helps us study the various ads and the strategies
adopted by the advertisers to promote their products.
It helps the manufactures to brand their products so
cleverly as to attract the customers who “shop for
meanings not stuff ”.
Semiotics is crucial in understanding how signs and
symbols influence manufacturers, consumers, and
brand perception.
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 S E M I OT I C A N A LYS I S O F RU S K I N B O N D ‟ S “ N I G H T T R A I N AT D E O L I ”

Sign 1---- „Night Train‟ [= gloom, failure, disappointment]

Sign 2---- „Deoli‟ [= mystery, unfriendly, desolation]
Sign 3----The short story [= a medium that helps the writer to
vent his pent up feelings & emotions; a mirror to reflect his
personal experiences, his disappointments in his youth]
Sign 4----“Why it stopped at Deoli, I don‟t know. Nothing ever
happened there. Nobody got off the train and nobody got on.”
[indicative of loneliness, desolation, fear, emptiness, despair,
etc]

(Continue)
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 S E M I OT I C A N A LYS I S O F RU S K I N B O N D ‟ S “ N I G H T T R A I N AT D E O L I ”

Sign 5---- “I was eighteen” [Every teenager is apt to get

feelings of love. But in many cases, it is no more than
„infatuation‟; readers can understand that I was no exception; I
too was hit by the arrows of Cupid, the god of Love]
Sign 6---- “No…..I don‟t want a basket‟ [=I want you, not the
stuff you have]
Sign 7-----“She was about to speak, the guard blew his
whistle. She said something, but it was lost in the clanging of
the bell and the hissing of the engine…” [=fate or destiny;
unfavourable circumstances]
• (Continue)
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 S E M I OT I C A N A LYS I S O F RU S K I N B O N D ‟ S “ N I G H T T R A I N AT D E O L I ”

Sign 8----“But at Deoli there was a new station

master” [=Changes are inevitable in life]
Sign 9---- “She was nothing to me”, said the owner of
the tea stall [= What you need, I don‟t need; our needs
are different; teenager needs „love‟, old man needs
money or comfort]
Sign 10----“But I will never break my journey there. It
may spoil my game. I prefer to keep hoping and
dreaming and looking out of the window up and down
that lonely platform, waiting for the girl with the
baskets”. (Continue)
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 S E M I OT I C A N A LYS I S O F RU S K I N B O N D ‟ S “ N I G H T T R A I N AT D E O L I ”

[=”basket”—it is a means of earning bread and butter for the

poor girl; it is a symbol of her empty mind; „love‟ is unthinkable
for a poor rustic girl; but the teenaged boy foolishly thinks that
he can easily win the heart of the beautiful poor girl by buying
a basket from her; to him it is a means of winning her love. But
in the end, when he passes the Deoli station and does not find
the girl there, he understands the power of fate. He accepts
what has fallen to his lot. He is just contented with her
thought. How long will she stay in his heart, he does not know.
He knows that he has been a coward not to express his love.
Perhaps, Bond speaks here of his unsuccessful love and
indirectly expresses his youthful but sad experience in this not-
a- good story.] (Continue)
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*THANKS FOR WATCHING*

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