Roland Barthes' enigma code...

Roland Barthes' was born in 1915 in Cherbough, Manche. Bartges' was a French literary theorist, critic and philosopher. He studied the history of cultural signs and symbols. His theory suggests that a piece of film, television or image (poster) can create a mysterious feel to the audience causing them to be drawn in and intrigued and also allowing them to have an interest in the theme of the piece. For example, a murder story will not give away who the murderer is until nearer the end of the film. This makes the audience question themselves and to think, 'Who is the murderer?' According to his enigma code, there are more ways to read text, to uncover a text's plural meaning you have to read the text, then re-read it and everytime time you read it you reveal another meaning within the text.

"A galaxy of signifers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the code it mobilises extend as far as the eye can read, they are indeterminable. The systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language" - Roland Barthes

Barthes' had a theory of five codes, which are...

The Hermeneutic code - the voice of truth
The Proairetic code - the voice of empirics
The Semantic code - the voice of the person
The Symbolic code - the voice of the symbol
The Cultural code - the voice of knowledge

The Hermeneutic code is where the story avoids telling the truth or revealing all the facts which allows the text to drop clues throughout and keep the text a mystery to the readers. This makes the audience eager to find out what happens in the story and keeps the firmly drawn in. This leads on to the next code.

The Proairetic code is the way the tension is built up and the way the audience is left to ask questions and think of conclusions to the story.

The Semantic code singles out any element in a piece of text that suggests or gives away any clear evidence of the actual meaning of the text.

The Symbolic code is a similar code to the Semantic code, but instead, organises the Semantic meanings into more detailed categories. This leads to new meanings coming from opposing and conflicting ideas.

The Cultural code is when the audience looks deeper into the knowledge of ideology and morality.


When reading and studying text, using these codes make it much easier to break down and understand more easily. Berthes' theory can also be used when looking at and trying to understand title sequences.  This is due to the reoccurring theme of title sequences dropping sly hints about the films main storyline.