Major - 16 Morden Literally Criticism

✨ NAME : Devmurai Janki NileshBhai 

✨ PAPER : Major - 16 Morden Literally criticism 

✨ SUBJECT: English 

✨ ACADEMIC YEAR : T.Y.B.A

✨ SAMESTER : 06

✨ PROFESSOR : Rachana ma'am

✨ COLLEGE : M N college

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|| CLASS ASSIGNMENT ||

🎀  Background of Postcolonial Criticism :

 

 

Postcolonial criticism is a major theoretical movement that examines the cultural, political, historical, and psychological effects of colonialism and imperialism. It

studies how European colonial powers represented colonized peoples and how those representations justified domination. Emerging in the latter half of the twentieth century, postcolonial criticism developed alongside decolonization movements in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean and seeks to challenge Western-centered narratives while recovering marginalized voices.

🎀 Historical Context :

 

Colonialism began in the fifteenth century with European expansion into Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Through military conquest, economic exploitation, and cultural

domination, European nations such as Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal established vast empires. Colonization was not only political and economic but also cultural: colonizers imposed their language, religion, education, and worldview upon the colonized societies.

  After World War II, many colonies gained independence. However, political independence did not automatically remove the cultural and psychological effects of

colonial rule. Former colonies continued to struggle with issues of identity, language, race, and economic dependency. It was in this historical moment of decolonization that postcolonial criticism emerged as a field of study.

🎀 Intellectual and Theoretical Origins : 

Postcolonial criticism has roots in both anti-colonial political thought and European critical theory. 

🎀 Anti-Colonial Thinkers :

 Early resistance writers and political leaders laid the groundwork for postcolonial theory. Frantz Fanon, in Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the  Earth (1961), examined the psychological trauma experienced by colonized subjects and argued that colonialism dehumanizes both the colonizer and the colonized. Aimé Césaire criticized the hypocrisy of European civilization and exposed the brutality of colonialism. These thinkers emphasized resistance, identity reconstruction, and liberation.

🎀 Influence of Poststructuralism : 

Postcolonial theory was also influenced by poststructuralist thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Foucault’s concept of the relationship between power and knowledge helped scholars understand how colonial discourse produced “truths”

about colonized people. Derrida’s theory of deconstruction highlighted how language is unstable and how meaning is constructed through binary oppositions such as civilized/primitive and West/East. Postcolonial critics used these tools to dismantle

colonial narratives.

🎀 Foundational Texts and Key Theorists : 

The publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 is widely regarded as the beginning of postcolonial criticism as an academic discipline. Said argued that

Western scholars, writers, and artists constructed the “Orient” as exotic, backward, irrational, and inferior. This representation was not innocent but served to justify

European imperial domination. According to Said, Orientalism was a discourse—a system of knowledge—that reinforced colonial power.

Homi K. Bhabha further developed postcolonial theory by introducing concepts such as hybridity, mimicry, and ambivalence. He argued that colonial relationships are not simply based on domination but involve complex cultural interactions. Hybridity refers to the mixing of cultures that occurs in colonial contexts. Mimicry describes how colonized subjects imitate the colonizer but never fully become the same, creating instability in colonial authority.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak added a feminist dimension to postcolonial studies. In her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988), she questioned whether marginalized groups, particularly colonized women, can truly express themselves within systems controlled by dominant powers. She introduced the term “subaltern” to describe

those excluded from power and representation.

🎀 Major Concerns of Postcolonial Criticism : 

Postcolonial criticism focuses on several key issues:

1. Representation and Stereotyping – How colonial literature portrays colonized peoples as inferior or exotic.

2. Identity and Hybridity – The formation of mixed cultural identities in postcolonial societies.

3. Language and Power – The dominance of colonial languages and debates over whether writers should use native languages.

4. Resistance and Nationalism – Literature as a form of political and cultural resistance.

5. Neo-colonialism – Continued economic and cultural control by former colonial powers even after independence.

6. Race, Gender, and Class – Intersectional oppression within colonial and postcolonial contexts.

🎀 Postcolonial Criticism and Literature : 

Postcolonial criticism analyzes both colonial texts and postcolonial writings. It re-examines canonical works such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre to reveal their imperial assumptions. At the same time, it celebrates writers from formerly colonized nations, such as Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Salman Rushdie, Derek Walcott, and Jean Rhys, who challenge colonial narratives and reconstruct suppressed histories.

For example, Achebe’s Things Fall Apart responds directly to colonial depictions of Africa by presenting a complex and dignified pre-colonial Igbo society. Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea gives voice to the marginalized Creole woman in Jane Eyre, thus rewriting the colonial narrative from the perspective of the oppressed.

🎀 Conclusion :

In conclusion, postcolonial criticism emerged from the historical realities of colonialism and decolonization and from theoretical developments iN twentieth-century thought. Influenced by anti-colonial activism and poststructuralist theory, it challenges Western dominance, questions cultural hierarchies, and seeks

to recover the voices of the marginalized. By examining how colonial power shaped literature and identity, postcolonial criticism continues to be a vital field for

understanding both past and present global inequalities .

✨ What Do Postcolonial Critics Do?

Postcolonial critics study literature and culture produced during and after colonial rule. Their main aim is to analyze how colonialism shaped identities, cultures, language, and power structures, and how these effects continue even after independence.

1. Examine Colonial Representation

Postcolonial critics analyze how colonized people were represented in colonial texts. They show how Western writers often portrayed the East as inferior, uncivilized, or exotic.

Edward Said in Orientalism argues that the West created a distorted image of the “Orient” to

justify domination.

2. Question Eurocentrism

They challenge the idea that Western culture and knowledge are superior. Postcolonial

criticism exposes how European standards were imposed on colonized societies and

marginalized indigenous cultures.

3. Study Power and Discourse

Postcolonial critics examine how power operates through language, education, religion, and

literature. Colonial discourse often silenced native voices and justified exploitation.

4. Recover Marginalized Voices

They attempt to rediscover and promote writings by colonized and oppressed peoples. This

includes highlighting subaltern voices.

Gayatri Spivak asks, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” and discusses how marginalized groups

are often denied representation.

5. Analyze Identity and Hybridity

Postcolonial critics explore issues of identity conflict, cultural hybridity, mimicry, and

alienation.

Homi K. Bhabha introduced concepts like hybridity and mimicry to explain mixed cultural

identities in postcolonial societies.

6. Study Resistance and Nationalism

They examine how literature expresses resistance against colonial rule and supports

national identity and decolonization.

7. Language and Decolonization

Postcolonial critics study the use of colonial languages (like English) in postcolonial literature

and how writers adapt or resist them.

✨ Conclusion : 

In short, postcolonial critics analyze how colonial power influenced literature and culture,

question Western dominance, recover suppressed voices, and explore themes of identity,

resistance, and cultural conflict. Their work helps us understand the lasting impact of

colonialism on societies and texts.

🧿  Postcolonial Criticism – With Example : 

 🤎  Introduction: 

Postcolonial criticism is a literary theory that examines the effects of colonialism on.countries, cultures, and people. It studies how European powers controlled, exploited, and represented colonized nations, and how these nations responded to colonial rule. This

theory also explores themes such as identity, race, power, resistance, language, and cultural

conflict.

Important postcolonial critics include Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

🧿 Key Concepts of Postcolonial Criticism : 

Colonialism and Imperialism – The political and economic control of one nation over another.

Othering – Presenting colonized people as inferior, uncivilized, or exotic.

Orientalism – A concept by Edward Said explaining how the West misrepresented the East.

Hybridity – Mixing of cultures due to colonization (Homi Bhabha).

Identity Crisis – Conflict between native culture and imposed colonial culture.

Resistance – The struggle of colonized people to reclaim identity and power.

🧿  Example    : Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart (1958) is a strong example of postcolonial

literature.

1. Representation of African Culture

Achebe presents Igbo society as rich, organized, and civilized. This challenges colonial writers who described Africa as primitive and savage.

2. Impact of Colonialism

The arrival of British missionaries and administrators destroys traditional Igbo culture. The

novel shows how religion, government, and trade were used to control Africans.

3. Identity and Conflict

The protagonist, Okonkwo, struggles to maintain traditional values in a changing society. His

personal tragedy reflects the larger cultural collapse caused by colonialism.

4. Resistance

Achebe resists colonial narratives by telling the story from an African perspective. He gives

voice to the colonized people.

Another Brief Example: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Postcolonial critics analyze this novel as a colonial text that portrays Africa as dark and

uncivilized. Edward Said argued that Conrad reinforces Western superiority. Achebe himself

criticized the novel for being racist.

🧿 Conclusion : 

Postcolonial criticism helps readers understand how literature reflects colonial power structures and cultural domination. It gives voice to marginalized people and questions Western authority in literature. Through works like Things Fall Apart, postcolonial theory reveals the psychological, cultural, and political effects of colonialism.

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🤎 Freudian Interpretation 

 🖤 Introduction : 

Freudian interpretation is a psychological method developed by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It is used to understand human behavior, dreams, literature, and personality by exploring the unconscious mind. Freud believed that much of human behavior is influenced by hidden desires, repressed memories, and unresolved childhood conflicts.

1. Structure of the Mind

Freud divided the mind into three levels:

(a) Conscious Mind

This includes thoughts and feelings we are aware of.

(b) Preconscious Mind

Contains memories that can be brought into awareness.

(c) Unconscious Mind

Stores repressed desires, traumatic memories, and instincts.

Freudian interpretation mainly focuses on uncovering this unconscious part.

2. Id, Ego, and Superego

Freud explained personality through three components:

Id – Works on the pleasure principle. It seeks immediate satisfaction of desires (e.g., hunger,

sex, aggression).

Ego – Works on the reality principle. It balances the id’s desires with real-world limits.

Superego – Represents moral values and societal rules.

Freudian interpretation analyzes conflicts among these three parts to explain behavior.

3. Role of Repression

Repression is a defense mechanism where painful memories or unacceptable desires are

pushed into the unconscious.

Freudian interpretation tries to uncover these hidden conflicts because they influence

behavior, dreams, and emotions.

4. Dream Interpretation

Freud called dreams the “royal road to the unconscious.”

Manifest content – The actual story of the dream.

Latent content – The hidden meaning behind the dream.

Freudian interpretation decodes symbols in dreams to reveal unconscious wishes.

Example:

Dreaming of water may symbolize birth or emotions.

5. Defense Mechanisms

Freud identified ways the ego protects itself from anxiety:

Repression

Projection

Denial

Displacement

Rationalization

Freudian interpretation studies these mechanisms to understand hidden fears or desires.

6. Psychosexual Stages

Freud believed personality develops through five stages:

Oral

Anal

Phallic

Latency

Genital

Unresolved conflicts at any stage can lead to fixation, which affects adult personality.

Interpretation examines childhood experiences to explain adult behavior.

7. Application in Literature

In literary criticism, Freudian interpretation:

Analyzes characters’ unconscious motives

Studies symbols as expressions of hidden desires

Explores themes like sexuality, guilt, and repression

Sometimes analyzes the author’s psychology

For example, a character’s aggressive behavior may reflect suppressed anger.

🤎 Conclusion : 

Freudian interpretation works by uncovering unconscious desires, repressed memories, and

internal conflicts. Through analysis of dreams, defense mechanisms, personality structure,

and childhood experiences, it explains human behavior and literary meaning. Although

criticized for overemphasizing sexuality, it remains an important psychological and literary

theory . 

🖤 What Freudian psychoanalytic critics do ? 

Freudian psychoanalytic critics apply Sigmund Freud’s theories of the unconscious mind to

analyze literature, film, art, and culture. They look for hidden psychological meanings

beneath the surface of a text.

Here’s what they typically do:

1. Analyze the Unconscious Motives of Characters

They examine:

Repressed desires

Hidden fears

Childhood trauma

Internal conflicts

For example, they might argue a character’s strange behavior is driven by unresolved

childhood experiences rather than conscious choice.

2. Look for Id, Ego, and Superego Conflicts

Freud divided the psyche into:

Id – instinctual desires (pleasure principle)

Ego – rational mediator

Superego – moral conscience

Critics analyze how characters struggle between desire, reality, and morality.

3. Interpret Symbols as Psychological Expressions

Freudian critics often interpret:

Dreams

Objects

Settings

Repeated imagery

as symbolic representations of unconscious desires (often sexual or aggressive).

4. Explore Repression and Defense Mechanisms

They identify psychological defenses such as:

Denial

Projection

Displacement

Sublimation

For example, a character who constantly accuses others of dishonesty may be projecting

their own guilt.

5. Examine Oedipal Themes

Freudian criticism often explores:

Parent–child tensions

Rivalry with authority figures

Forbidden desire

For example, Hamlet is frequently analyzed through the Oedipus complex (his feelings

toward his mother and hostility toward his uncle).

6. Analyze the Author’s Psyche (Sometimes)

Some Freudian critics examine:

The author’s biography

Repressed conflicts in the writer’s life

How the text reflects the author’s unconscious

(This approach is less common in modern criticism.)

7. Study Reader Response Psychologically

Some critics analyze how texts trigger unconscious reactions in readers—why certain stories

feel disturbing, comforting, or taboo.

🖤 In Short:

Freudian psychoanalytic critics try to answer:

What hidden psychological forces are shaping this text?

They believe literature reveals the unconscious mind—of the character, the author, or even

the reader.

💜 Freudian psychoanalytic criticism example

🤎 What Is Freudian Psychoanalytic Criticism?

Freudian criticism analyzes literature using Sigmund Freud’s psychological theories, especially:

The unconscious mind

Repression

Id, Ego, Superego

Oedipus complex

Dream symbolism

Defense mechanisms

It looks for hidden desires, fears, and conflicts in characters.

Example: Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Psychoanalytic Interpretation

A Freudian critic might argue that Hamlet delays killing Claudius because Claudius has

acted out Hamlet’s own unconscious desires.

Step-by-Step Analysis:

Oedipus Complex

Freud believed sons unconsciously desire their mothers and feel rivalry toward their fathers.

Claudius kills Hamlet’s father and marries Gertrude.

Claudius has done what Hamlet unconsciously wished to do.

Therefore, Hamlet hesitates to kill Claudius because Claudius represents Hamlet’s hidden desires.

Repression

Hamlet represses his anger and sexual jealousy.

His hesitation shows inner psychological conflict rather than simple cowardice.

Id, Ego, Superego Conflict

Id: Wants revenge immediately

Superego: Moral conscience (killing is wrong).

Ego: Tries to balance both, causing delay and overthinking.

So instead of saying “Hamlet is indecisive,” a Freudian critic says:

Hamlet’s delay is caused by unconscious psychological conflict.

Shorter Example: The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

A Freudian reading might say:

The old man’s eye symbolizes the narrator’s guilt or repressed fear.

The narrator’s extreme reaction suggests projection (a defense mechanism).

The beating heart represents overwhelming unconscious guilt.

Simple Paragraph Example (For Exam Writing)

In Hamlet, a Freudian psychoanalytic critic would argue that Hamlet’s delay in killing Claudius reflects unconscious psychological conflict. According to Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex, Hamlet may unconsciously desire his mother and resent his father. Since Claudius fulfills these hidden desires by killing the king and marrying Gertrude, Hamlet hesitates to punish him. Thus, the play reveals the struggle between unconscious desire and moral responsibility .

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💌  The scope of structuralism

Structuralism is not just about language and literature. When Saussure's work was 'co-opted' in the 1950s by the people we now call structuralists, their feeling was that Saussure's model of how language works was transferable', and would also explain how all signifying systems work.

The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss applied the structuralist outlook to the interpetation of myth. He suggested that the individual tale (the parole) from a cycle of myths did not have a separate and inherent meaning but could only be understood by considering its position in the whole cycle (the langue) and the similarities and difference between that tale and others in the sequence.

So in interpreting the Oedipus myth, he placed the individual story of Oedipus within the context of the whole cycle of tales connected with the city of Thebes. He then began to see repeated motifs and contrasts, and he used these as the basis of his interpretation. On this method the story and the cycle it is part of are reconstituted in terms of basic oppositions: animal/human, relation/stranger, husband/son and so on. Concrete details from the story are seen in the context of a larger structure, and the larger structure is then seen as an overall network of basic

'dyadic pairs' which have obvious symbolic, thematic, and archetypal resonance (like the contrast between art and life, male and female, town and country, telling and showing, etc., as in the worked example' later).

This is the typical structuralist process of moving from the particular to the general, placing the individual work within a wider structural context. The wider structure might also be found in, for instance, the whole corpus of an author's work; or in the genre conventions of writing about that particular topic (for instance, discussing Dickens's novel Hard Times in terms of its deviations from novelistic conventions and into those of other more popular genres, like melodrama or the ballad); or in the identification of sets of underlying fundamental 'dyads'. A signifying system in this sense is a very wide concept: it means any organised and structured set of signs which carries cultural meanings. Included in this category would be such diverse phenomena as: works of literature, tribal rituals (a degree ceremony, say, or a rain dance), fashions (in clothing, food, 'life-style', etc.), the styling of cars, or the contents of advertisements. For the structuralist, the culture we are part of can be 'read' like a language, using these principles, since culture is made up of many structural networks which carry significance and can be shown to operate in a systematic way. These networks operate through 'codes' as a system of signs; they can make statements, just as language does, and they can be read or decoded by the structuralist or semiotician.

Fashion, for instance, can be 'read' like a language. Separate items or features are added up into a complete 'outfit or look' with complex grammatical rules of combination: we don't wear an evening dress and carpet slippers: we don't come to lectures in military uniform, etc. 

Likewise, each component sign derives its meaning from a structural context. Of course, many fashions in clothing depend on breaking such rules in a 'knowing' way, but the 'statement' made by such rule-breaks (for instance, making outer garments which look like undergarments, or cutting expensive fabrics in an apparently rough way) depends upon the prior existence of the rule' or convention which is being conspicuously flouted. In the fashion world, for instance, (late 1994) the combination of such features as exposed seams, crumpled-looking fabrics, and garments which were too big or too small for the wearer signified the fashion known (confusingly, in this context) as deconstruction. Take any one of these features out of the context of all the rest, however, and they will merely signify that you have your jacket on inside out or don't believe in ironing. Again, these individual items have their place in an overall structure, and the structure is of greater significance than the individual item.

The other major figure in the early phase of structuralism was Roland Barthes, who applied the structuralist method to the general field of modern culture. He examined modern France (of the 1950s) from the standpoint of a cultural anthropologist in a little book called Mythologies which he published in France in 1957. This looked at a host of items which had never before been subjected to intellectual analysis, such as: the difference between boxing and wrestling; the significance of eating steak and chips; the styling of the Citroën car; the cinema image of Greta Garbo's face; a magazine photograph of an Algerian soldier saluting the French flag. Each of these items he placed within a wider structure of values, beliefs, and symbols as the key to understanding it. Thus, boxing is seen as a sport concerned with repression and endurance, as distinct from wrestling, where pain is flamboyantly displayed. Boxers do not cry out in pain when hit, the rules cannot be disregarded at any point during the bout, and the boxer fights as himself, not in the elaborate guise of a make-believe villain or hero. By contrast, wrestlers grunt and snarl with aggression, stage elaborate displays of agony or triumph, and fight as exaggerated, larger than life villains or super-heroes. Clearly, these two sports have quite different functions within society: boxing enacts the stoical endurance which is sometimes necessary in life, while wrestling dramatises ultimate struggles and conflicts between good and evil. Barthes's approach here, then, is that of the classic structuralist: the individual item is 'structuralised', or

'contextualised by structure', and in the process of doing this layers of sigificance are revealed.

Roland Barthes in these early years also made specific examinations of aspects of literature, and by the 1970s, structuralism was attracting widespread attention in Paris and world wide. A number of English and American academics spent time in Paris in the 1970s taking courses under the leading structuralist figures (and these included Colin MacCabe) and came back to Britain and the USA fired up to teach similar ideas and approaches here. 

The key works on structuralism were in French, and these began to be translated in the 1970s and published in English. A number of Anglo-American figures undertook to read material not yet translated and to interpret structuralism for English-speaking readers; these important mediators included: the American, Jonathan Culler, whose book Structuralist Poetics appeared in 1975; the English critic Terence Hawkes, whose book Structuralism and Semiotics came out in 1977 as the first book in a new series published by Methuen called 'New Accents'. 

Hawkes was the generaL editor of the series, and its mission was to encourage rather than resist the process of change in literary studies. Another influential figure was the British critic Frank Kermode, then professor at University College, London, who wrote with enthusiasm about Roland Barthes, and set up graduate seminars to discuss his work (though he later in the 1990s became identified, in retirement, with much more traditional approaches). Finally, there was David Lodge, Professor of English at Birmingham, who tried to combine the ideas of structuralism with more traditional approaches. This attempt is typified by his book Working with Structuralism (1980).

💌  What structuralist critics do : 

1. They analyse (mainly) prose narratives, relating the text to some larger containing structure, such as:

(a) the conventions of a particular literary genre, or

(b) a network of intertextual connections, or

(c) a projected model of an underlying universal narrative structure, or

(d) a notion of narrative as a complex of recurrent patterns or motifs.

2. They interpret literature in terms of a range of underlying parallels with the structures of language, as described by modern linguistics. For instance, the notion of the 'mytheme', posited by Lévi-Strauss, denoting the minimal unit of narrative 'sense', is formed on the analogy of the morpheme, which, in linguistics, is the smallest unit of grammatical sense. An example of a morpheme is the 'ed' added to a verb to denote the past tense.

3. They apply the concept of systematic patterning and structuring to the whole field of Western culture, and across cultures, treating as 'systems of signs' anything from Ancient Greek myths to brands of soap powder.

Structuralist criticism: examples

I will base these examples on the methods of literary analysis described and demonstrated in Barthes's book SIZ, published in 1970. This book, of some two hundred pages, is about Balzac's thirty-page story 'Sarrasine'. Barthes's method of analysis is to divide the story into 561 'lexies, or units of meaning, which he then classifies using five 'codes, seeing these as the basic underlying structures of all narratives. So in terms of our opening statement about structuralism (that it aims to understand the individual item by placing it in the context of the larger structure to which it belongs) the individual item here is this particular story, and the larger structure is the system of codes, which Barthes sees as generating all possible actual narratives, just as the grammatical structures of a language can be seen as generating all possible sentences which can be written or spoken in it. I should add that there is a difficulty in taking as an example of structuralism material from a text by Barthes published in 1970, since 1970 comes within what is usually considered to be Barthes's post-structuralist phase, always said to begin (as in this book) with his 1968 essay 'The Death of the Author. My reasons for nevertheless regarding S/ as primarily a structuralist text are, firstly, to do with precedent and established custom: it is treated as such, for instance, in many of the best known books on structuralism (such as Terence Hawkes's Structuralism and Semiotics, Robert Scholes's Structuralism in Literature, and Jonathan Culler's Structuralist Poetics). A second reason is that while S/Z clearly contains many elements which subvert the confident positivism of structuralism, it is nevertheless essentially structuralist in its attempt to reduce the immense complexity and diversity possible in fiction to the operation of five codes, however tongue-in-cheek the exercise may be taken to be. The truth, really, is that the book sits on the fence between structuralism and post-structuralism: the 561 lexies and the five codes are linked in spirit to the 'high' structuralism of Barthes's 1968 essay Analysing Narrative Structures', while the ninety-three interspersed digressions, with their much more freewheeling comments on narrative, anticipate the full post-structuralism of his 1973 book The Pleasure of the Text.

💌  The five codes identified by Barthes in SIZ are:

1. The proairetic code This code provides indications of actions. ('The ship sailed at midnight'

'They began again', etc.)

2. The hermeneutic code This code poses questions or enigmas which provide narrative suspense. (For instance, the sentence 'He knocked on a certain door in the neighbourhood neighbourhood of Pell Street' makes the reader wonder who lived there, what kind of neighbourhood it was, and so on.)

3. The cultural code This code contains references out beyond the text to what is regarded as common knowledge. (For example, the sentence Agent Angelis was the kind of man who sometimes arrives at work in odd socks' evokes a pre-existing image in the reader's mind of the kind of man this is - a stereotype of bungling incompetence, perhaps, contrasting that with the image of brisk efficiency contained in the notion of an 'agent'.)

4. The semic code This is also called the connotative code. It is linked to theme, and this code (says Scholes in the book mentioned above) when organised around a particular proper name constitutes a character. Its operation is demonstrated in the second example, below.

5. The symbolic code This code is also linked to theme, but on a larger scale, so to speak. It consists of contrasts and pairings related to the most basic binary polarities - male and female, night and day, good and evil, life and art, and soon. These are the structures of contrasted elements which structuralists see as fundamental to the human way of perceiving and organising reality.

As the last two codes have generated the greatest difficulty (especially in distinguishing one from the other) I will use each in turn as the basis of an example, beginning with the symbolic code, which I will illustrate in use as the organising principle for the interpretation of an entire tale, the story being 'The Oval Portrait (reproduced in Appendix 1), by the early nineteenth-century American writer Edgar Allan Poe, an author who has received considerable attention from both structuralists and post-structuralists. In terms of the What structuralists do' list of activities above, this is an example of category l.(d), treating narrative structure as a complex of recurrent patterns and motifs.

In discussing it I will enlist your help as a co-writer of this structuralist critique. The points at which your help is requested are indicated by the 'STOP and THINK' heading.

A brief working summary of the plot may be useful. During what appears to be a civil war in an unnamed European country a wounded officer (as we may assume him to be) takes refuge in a recently abandoned chateau. The room he sleeps in contains an extremely lifelike portrait of a young woman, and a written account of this portrait, which he finds in the room, tells how the artist was her husband, who had become so carried away with the creation of the portrait that he failed to notice that as life' was kindled in the painting it simultaneously drained away from the sitter. At the end of the tale the placing of the final touch of colour which renders the portrait perfect coincides with the death of the sitter.

The most basic difference between liberal humanist and structuralist reading is that the structuralist's comments on structure, symbol, and design become paramount and are the main focus of the commentary, while the emphasis on any wider moral significance, and indeed on interpretation itself in the broad sense, is very much reduced. So instead of going straight into the content, in the liberal humanist manner, the structuralist presents a series of parallels, echoes, reflections, patterns, and contrasts, so that the narrative becomes highly schematised, is translated, in fact, into what we might call a verbal diagram. What we are looking for, as we attempt a structuralist critique, and where we expect to find it, can be indicated as in the diagram below. 

We are looking for the factors listed on the left, and we expect to find them in the parts of the tale listed on the right: Listing some of the parallels, etc., which might be picked out in Poe's tale is perhaps the best way of illustrating all this. Firstly, then, the tale itself has a binary structure (a structure of paired opposites) made up of two contrasting halves: the first part is a framing' narrative, containing the first-person account of the wounded officer, while the second is the story-within-the-story which he reads in the commentary on the painting. There is a very marked difference in narrative pace between these two halves, the first being leisurely, ponderous even, reflecting the down-to-earth, rationalistic mind of the officer, while the second moves with increasingly disjointed rapidity, reflecting the frenzy of artistic creation, and the rapid downward spiral of the victim/sitter's health.

A second contrast within the tale is that the chateau itself performs very different functions in the two halves. In the first half it is a place of refuge and recuperation for the officer, where he finds safety from his enemies and, we may assume, recovers his health. In the second halt, by contrast, it is a place of danger and ultimately destruction for the sitter, where she is delivered to the whims of her artist-husband and her life is drained away.

STOP and THINK

Now, look for other contrasts between the two halves. For instance, each half features a relationship between two people (the officer and the valet in the first part and the artist and his wife in the second): how do these two relationships differ? There is an unequal distribution of power within each relationship, but the effects are different. How, exactly? Is there a similarity in what the members of each couple do to and for each other?

The main 'actors' in the two halves are (respectively) the wounded officer and the artist. What contrasts are observable in the mental state of these two?

Both the officer in the first part and the artist in the second are, in a sense, engrossed in a painting, but the role of art in the two halves is very different. What exactly is the contrast?

All these are contrasts, parallels, etc., between the two halves. There are also many more within the two halves. Firstly, there is a strongly implied contrast between the husband's self-absorbed artistic frenzy on the one hand, and a more conventional outwardly directed sexual passion of the kind which might be expected in a husband for a new bride. Instead of being fascinated by her, this husband is 'entranced before his work' in auto-erotic contemplation. Indeed, the marriage is in a sense bigamous, since the husband is described as 'having already a bride in his art. The several weeks he spends alone with his new bride executing the painting are a kind of sustained negative parody of a honeymoon. Locked up together for several weeks, the husband painter 'took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task and wrought day and night', and towards the end 'the painter had grown wild with the ardour of his work. In fact, he has spent this 'honeymoon' in passionate involvement with the first bride rather than the second.

A third level of contrasts and parallels are those which concern narrative mechanisms such as presentation and language, as well as content. One such, for instance, is the parallel between the narrators of the two halves. Both have a degree of anonymity, and in the second case the anonymity is complete, since we are given no information at all about the identity of the author of the 'vague and quaint words' of the story-within-the-story. (The only named character is Pedro the valet, the least important figure in the tale.) But structuralists are encouraged by Roland Barthes to ask of a text the question 'qui parle?' - 'Who is speaking?' - and if we ask that question of the second part of the tale, then the answer will involve dislodging the narrator from the position of a neutral spectatorial recorder, for this account must have been written by someone who witnessed these events without attempting any intervention. At the very least, this witness is someone without insight, indistinguishable from those who, having seen the portrait, 'spoke of its resemblance in low words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not less of the power of the painter than of his deep love for her whom he depicted so surpassingly well.

STOP and THINK

The first narrator, too, can be seen as to some degree culpable, and as wilfully blind to the events witnessed. Could we go further? Is there a parallel between the two narrators, such that the first is aligned, through the language used, with the attitudes of the artist-husband?

For instance, what do you make of his prolonged contemplation of the painting? Are there elements in that part of the text which parallel the displaced eroticism of the artist's protracted gazing on his wife as he makes the painting? There are two examples, not just one, of an intense masculine gaze in the story. Look at the distribution of the words 'gaze' and 'glory' (or

'gloriously') in the text. Look at the way the passing of time is depicted in each of these cases.

 Inboth cases there is a moment when the gaze is averted: what is the significance of this parallelism?

All these contrasts are of a very particular kind, proper to just this one tale. We may then perform a simplifying move which is rather like finding the lowest common denominator of a set of numbers, for these items might be reduced to a set of more generalised ones: the contrast and conflict between life and art, male and female, light and dark (in the sense of enlightenment and moral benightedness, as well as in purely physical terms), looking and doing, reality and representation. The thesis of the structuralist is that narrative structures are founded upon such underlying paired opposites, or dyads, so that contrasts such as these are the skeletal structure on which all narratives are fleshed out. If we had to reduce even this list of dyads, to achieve a single pair, then it would have to be the art/life contrast, since the tale seems most to be about life and art viewed as factors in an overall psychic economy.

The obvious final question is to ask which side of this dichotomy the tale is on. There can surely be little doubt that it is on the side of art, for it is the act of artistic creation, and, to a lesser extent, that of contemplating a work of art, which is most vividly and passionately described in the tale, rather than any sense of the waste of a young life. The frenzy of this ‘passionate, wild, and moody man’ produces a work of art so lifelike that it seems the product of a divine being. This is no way to champion ‘life’. ‘Officially’ the story is a pious protest at the sacrifice of a young life, but in practice the making of the sacrifice is presented with a kind of loving envy. As D. H. Lawrence didn’t quite say, never trust the moral, trust the tale.

So much, then, for the symbolic code. The second example centres on the operation within a text of the semic code. This code, as we have said, is linked with the process of characterisation and thematicisation but operates on a smaller scale than the symbolic code. For Hawkes, in the book mentioned earlier, it ‘utilises hints or “flickers of meaning”, and given that it operates through the nuances of individual words and phrases, the best way to appreciate it in action is to use a variation of what educationalists call ‘cloze procedure’, which involves deleting words from a text and having readers fill the gaps by drawing inferences from context and overall structure.

The passage below is the opening of a novel by Mervyn Jones. The central character, Mr Armitage, is presented in the opening scene and his character immediately established. I have left gaps in the text and have listed at the end of the relevant sentences several words which might fill that gap (one of which, in each case, is the word actually used by the author). You will see that the character is decisively altered, according to the word you choose to fill the gap, enabling us to feel the semic code actually at work. The paragraphs have been numbered for reference.

ease of reference. In terms of the 'What structuralists do list, this is an example of 1.(c), that is, of relating the text to a projected model of an underlying universal narrative structure, since the critic would assume that the five Barthesian codes are fundamental to the workings of all narratives. Spend time now selecting a word for each gap before going on to my commentary.

STOP and THINK

1. John Edward Scott Armitage: fifty-five years old, five feet eleven inches tall, weight thirteen stone three

Ipounds, ounces]

2. June the eighth: a fine morning, nine-fifteen by the programme change on the car radio, also nine-fifteen exactly as he checked the time on his _ watch. [multi-function, Swiss, Swatch, Timex, Pocket, Mickey Mouse]

3. Hendon Way, north-bound. Armitage was driving a Jaguar, just run in. Its newness pleased him - the

smell of the leather, the neat zeros on the mileage dial. He was among those

men whose car is never more than a year old. [rich, sweet, heady, sexy, opulent]

There is further description, then Armitage slows the car to look at two hitch-hikers. They meet his standards of acceptability, and he offers them a lift, but the response to his offer is a momentary hesitation. The text resumes:

4. The boy still presented his pleasant smile, but did not get into the car. Now he seemed to be considering, not only the directions, but also the car, and even Armitage himself. The hitch-hiker, in fact, was deciding whether to accept the driver instead of the other way round. Armitage was _ In a few seconds more he might have been indignant. But the girl said: 'This is fine - yes

it is - super, really. baffled, stumped, gob-smacked]

5. She spoke eagerly, indeed with some impatience at the boy's hesitation. And she too smiled at Armitage, but more than pleasantly, _

- he thought. Of course, they were lucky to get a

long ride in a new Jaguar. The girl clearly realised this; she seemed, moreover, to be happy to travel with Armitage. As soon as this notion occurred to him Armitage saw that it was absurd.

Yet it was an attractive thing for her to give such an impression. [happily, cheerfully, invitingly, gleefully]

6. She

into the front seat, and the boy got into the back. Armitage pulled away quickly to

get ahead of a removal van. He drove in a thrusting style, seizing every opportunity, overtaking in roaring third gear. He met, and then dismissed, the thought that the girl's presence beside him had made him show off his skill. ljumped quickly, plumped heavily, slid seductively, slid easily, squeezed awkwardly, slipped quietly]

I'll comment briefly on the gaps in each of these paragraphs.

In the first, the word in the published text is 'ounces, the precision of which immediately suggests a man with a very precise and ordered attitude to life. (How many people know their weight to the nearest ounce?)

In the second paragraph the character of Armitage is completely changed if we change his watch. In the text his 'Swiss' watch reinforces the image of the well-ordered, well-to-do life already established in the first few lines of the book. But the semic code's flicker of meaning' can instantly change him into an ageing gadget-faddist with a multi-function digital timepiece, or a dedicated follower of tashion with a trendy Swatch Watch, or an old fogey with a pocket watch, or a hearty life-and-soul-of-the-party type with a jokey Mickey Mouse watch.

In the third paragraph the words 'sweet, 'heady', and 'sexy' all come close to turning Armitage into a leather fetishist, while 'rich' has a certain directness and vulgarity which implies that his pleasure in things is in direct proportion to their cost. The text's 'opulent' retains an element of this but seems to imply an appreciation of quality and craftsmanship for its own sake.

In the fourth paragraph (as often in fiction) the kind of word used by the narrating voice reflects the character being described. 'Stumped' suggests an undignified cluelessness, as, even more so, does 'gob-smacked', whereas the text's 'baffled' implies the offended dignity of a man of some standing accustomed to a degree of respect.

In the fifth paragraph Armitage's perception of the nature of the girl's smile is a crucial element in his characterisation. The text has him seeing her as smiling 'cheerfully', indicating that he is pleased to perceive a positive reaction towards himself. If she were smiling, in his view, invitingly', then the implication would be that his motives were entirely sexual. 'Gleefully', on the other hand, would make her into a child rather than an adult.

In the final paragraph the missing phrase indicates that, all the same, Armitage finds the girl attractive and is physically aware of her. The text tells us that she 'slid easily' into the front seat, implying a certain slender gracefulness. Armitage's attention is less directed towards the boy, so he simply 'got into the back. If we reverse these two phrases the implication is that Armitage is more interested in the boy than the girl, thus: 'She got into the front seat, and the boy slid easily into the back. This has the effect of tending to construct Armitage as homosexual, even though no such explicit statement is made.

This simple 'cloze' exercise, then, indicates something of the small-scale, but none the less crucial, workings of the semic code in the construction of character, while also showing how, in sequence, this code can begin to activate thematic motifs, such as the notion of orderliness and control associated with Armitage.

The operation of two other codes could easily be illustrated from the same passage. The hermeneutic code, for instance, is obviously important in it. Right at the beginning of a novel the reader has to be drawn into the process of speculating about possible outcomes, working out enigmas, and predicting the possible patterns of events and motives.

motives. Thus, with this example we are immediately involved in answering questions like 'What is going to happen as a result of this meeting?' "Are the hitch-hikers as innocent as they seem?'

'Will Armitage's confidence be shaken in some way as the novel progresses? Finally, an example of the cultural code is seen in the third paragraph when we are told that Armitage was among those men whose car is never more than a year old' where the text appeals to our prior

knowledge of this kind of man as a distinct type with a whole range of related characteristics and habits. The last code, the symbolic, would be difficult to detect in such a brief and early extract from a novel, and has already been demonstrated at length in the Poe example.

                                           XXX