barthe-structuralism

Structural Analysis of Narrative

An approach developed by Roland Barthes that studies the underlying structures common to all narratives, rather than their content or meaning.

Levels of Description

Barthes outlines three levels of narrative analysis: the functions (what happens), the actions (who acts), and the narration (how it is told).

Functions

The smallest units of narrative, these are events or propositions that have a role in the narrative sequence (e.g., "He opened the door").

Cardinal Functions

Key actions that open or close choices in the narrative; pivotal points that affect the story’s development.

Catalyses

Minor narrative actions that serve to fill in, elaborate, or delay the narrative but do not affect the plot structure.

Indices

Elements that refer to a character’s psychological state, atmosphere, or thematic meanings, contributing to narrative texture rather than action.

Informants

Elements that provide pure data about the storyworld (e.g., time, place, names) without functional impact.

Narrative Code

Barthes's concept that narratives are made up of various “codes”—sets of signs and conventions—that guide interpretation.

Hermeneutic Code

The code of enigmas; elements that set up and delay the resolution of questions or mysteries.

Proairetic Code

The code of actions; organizes events in cause-and-effect sequences.

Semic Code

Code related to characters and connotations; signs that construct personhood and identity.

Symbolic Code

Code of deeper, abstract meanings; relates to binary oppositions and symbolic structures.

Cultural Code

References to shared knowledge or cultural norms that the reader must recognize to understand the narrative.

Actantial Model

A structure derived from Greimas: Subject, Object, Helper, Opponent, Sender, and Receiver roles through which narratives operate.

Narrative Grammar

Barthes proposes that narrative can be studied like language, with its own syntax and rules.

Narrative Metalanguage

The system of signs through which narrative speaks about itself—how narration reflects on storytelling.

Narrator vs. Narratee

Barthes distinguishes the one who tells the story (narrator) from the one who is addressed (narratee), both internal elements of narrative.

Narrative Sequence

Narratives proceed through a structured progression of units, not randomly; Barthes analyzes their hierarchy.

Discourse vs. Story

A distinction between how the story is told (discourse) and what actually happens (story).

Myth and Narrative

Barthes connects narrative to myth, seeing both as structured forms that naturalize cultural values.

Narrative Economy

Barthes emphasizes the efficiency and function of each unit in the narrative system.

Structuralist Criticism

A critical approach focused on identifying underlying structures (like narrative codes or actantial roles) rather than subjective interpretation.

Roland Barthes

A French literary theorist whose work in semiotics and structuralism shaped modern narrative theory.

Narrative Logic

The internal coherence and progression of a story based on structural relationships rather than chronological sequence.

Textual Pleasure

Barthes believes structural analysis reveals how texts generate pleasure through delay, ambiguity, and expectation.

Narrative as a system of signs

Barthes treats narrative not as a transparent vehicle of meaning but as a system of signs governed by codes that structure intelligibility.

Hierarchical structure of narrative

Barthes argues that narrative is composed of levels (functions, actions, narration) that interact hierarchically, with the smallest units nesting within larger narrative structures.

Narrative functionality

Every unit in a narrative serves a function: either advancing the plot (cardinal) or supporting/expanding it (catalysis, index, informant), echoing Saussurean structural linguistics.

Redundancy and economy in narrative

Barthes emphasizes that narrative systems aim for balance between economy (minimal necessary information) and redundancy (aesthetic or atmospheric elaboration).

Narrative delay and desire

The Hermeneutic Code introduces strategic delays that manipulate the reader’s desire for resolution, creating tension and narrative momentum.

Proairetic vs. Hermeneutic tension

These two codes operate in dynamic tension: actions propel the narrative forward (proairetic), while enigmas withhold meaning (hermeneutic), producing narrative complexity.

Symbolic overdetermination

Barthes’s Symbolic Code allows for polysemic interpretation through binary oppositions (e.g., life/death, inside/outside), often layered within a single motif or scene.

Interplay of codes and multiplicity

Barthes insists that multiple narrative codes are always operating simultaneously, generating polyvalence and resisting reductive interpretation.

Narrative as mythic structure

Building on structuralist anthropology, Barthes views narrative as repeating mythic oppositions and functions, aligning with Lévi-Strauss’s view of myth as a mode of thought.

Structuralist narratology vs. Formalism

Barthes extends beyond Formalist focus on plot devices by incorporating semiotics and questioning the ideology of narrative form itself.

Code-switching within narrative

The movement between narrative codes—e.g., from proairetic to semic or from hermeneutic to cultural—creates layered interpretive possibilities.

The narrator as discursive construct

Barthes decouples the narrator from authorial intent, treating the narrator as a structural position within the narrative apparatus.

Metanarrative awareness

Barthes notes how narratives often gesture toward their own construction, creating a reflexive “narrative metalanguage” that critiques storytelling itself.

Barthes’s anti-realist stance

Narrative does not “reflect” reality but constructs it through conventionalized structures that naturalize ideology; Barthes exposes this artificiality.

Function of narrative ambiguity

Narratives generate pleasure through ambiguity—unresolved codes, deferred meaning, open-ended structures—allowing interpretive multiplicity.

Discontinuous coherence

Narrative coherence is not a matter of logical flow but of structural recurrence and pattern; coherence is constructed through repetition of narrative units.

Cultural code and intertextuality

The Cultural Code invites the reader to draw on shared cultural knowledge, linking the text intertextually to other discourses and mythologies.

Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

Barthes identifies how narrative meaning is constructed not only in linear sequence (syntagm) but through oppositional relations (paradigm) across codes.

Narrative as ideology

The codes through which stories are told conceal their constructedness, thus naturalizing ideology; structural analysis aims to reveal these mechanisms.

Pleasure of the text

For Barthes, the narrative text seduces the reader not through truth but through the play of signs and the suspension of meaning.

Textual productivity

Structural analysis reveals the narrative not as a closed, fixed structure but as a site of production, where meaning is generated through active reading of codes.

Narrative semiotics

Barthes treats narrative as a semiotic field where signifiers operate across multiple registers—linguistic, cultural, symbolic—to produce meaning through structure.

From story to discourse

The distinction between 'story' (what happened) and 'discourse' (how it is told) allows critical focus on the narrative’s formal mediation of events.

Interrogation of linearity

Barthes challenges the idea of linear narrative as natural, showing how structural units can be reordered, nested, or fragmented without losing coherence.

Narrative competence

Barthes implicitly addresses the reader’s narrative literacy—their ability to decode, anticipate, and interpret structural units and codes within a narrative system.