NARRATIVE
Narrative is the way that events are put together to be represented to an audience.
ROLAND BARTHES NARRATIVE THEORY
Biography: Roland Barthes is French essayist and social and literary critic whose writings on semiotics, the formal study of symbols and signs helped establish Structuralism and the New Criticism as leading intellectual movements.
Roland Barthes argues that every narrative is interwoven with five codes that drive one to maintain interest in a story.
- The hermeneutic Code – A narrative device that teases the audience by presenting a puzzle or riddle to be solved. The plot elements are not explained in order to draw in the attention of the audience.
- The Proairetic Code – Refers to plot events that imply further narrative action
- The Semic Code – The accumulation of connotations. These signs allow the author to describe characters, settings and events.
- The Symbolic Code – Refers to a structural structure that organises meanings by way of antitheses, binary oppositions or sexual and psychological conflicts.
- The Cultural Code – Designates any element in a narrative that refers to common body of knowledge such as historical, mythological or scientific.
Other narrative theories: Tzvetan Todorov, Vladimir Propp & Claude Levi-Strauss
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