Roland Barthes' Mythologies consists of two sections, one containing a series of short essays on different aspects of French daily life written in a humorous journalistic style, and the second containing a longer theoretical
essay entitled
Myth Today that explores the methodology behind this deconstruction in greater detail. Barthes attempts to unravel the layers of
meaning that lie behind seemingly innocuous
everyday texts. His definition of text was one of the early formulations that expanded this notion to include any aspect of daily life with the potential to signify meaning (in the same way as a conventional linguistic
sign). The texts that he reads"in Mythologies include soap powders, children's toys, iconoclastic celebrities, tropes such as the idea of the writer on holiday,
women's magazines, and professional wrestling, among others. He deconstructs each image, product, discourse or act to reveal the ways in which it recreates and strengthens societal norms and values, reinforcing the hegemonic petit-bourgeoisie ideologies that dominated daily life in 1950's France.One example of this method is the first essay in which he identifies the tawdry spectacle of pro-wrestling as the modern equivalent of ancient Greek drama performed in the amphitheater: What is portrayed by wrestling is an ideal understanding of things; it is the euphoria of men raised for a while above the constitutive ambiguity of everyday situations and placed before the panoramic view of a univocal Nature, in which signs at last correspond to causes, without obstacle, without evasion, without contradiction (Mythologies, 25). Barthes deciphers how wrestlers take on tragic or comic stock personas for the benefit of their fans and how their exaggerated gestures, drama, and Good vs. Evil conflicts perform a cathartic function for the audience, a venue through which frustrated emotion can find a release and the complexity of modern existence revert to black and white simplicity. As a result, what is displayed for the public is the great spectacle of Suffering, Defeat, and Justiceand it can be said that wrestlers
gods because they are, for a few moments, the key which opens Nature, the pure gesture which separates Good from Evil, and unveils the form of a Justice which is at last intelligible (Mythologies, 25).Another essay, Novels and Children, explores how a feature story in the women's magazine Elle equates the literary output of women novelists with their corresponding domestic output, i.e. number of children. This serves to reinforce the traditional roles of housewife and mother even for those women granted success in creative pursuits. In The Brain of Einstein, Barthes looks at society's fetishization of the great scientist's brain as an object possessing both exceptional mechanical power and an aura of esoteric energy. And in Wine and Milk the construction of French nationhood is examined through the symbolic vehicle of red wine, the consumption of which is indelibly tied to the concept of Frenchness, while milk as theanti-wine" is linked to strength, purity and traditional American values. The other essays deconstruct images along similar lines.In the theoretical essay Myth TodayBarthes builds on the ideas of linguists such as Ferdinand Saussure with his concept of the linguistic sign that consists of a signifier (the vehicle for the meaning) and the signified (the meaning being conveyed). In Barthes' application of this notion to the objects and practices of everyday life, he takes the analysis a step further and invests a further layer of meaning in each sign - the mythological meaning or cultural subtext that underlies the primary linguistic meaning. He names the language system that myth appropriates the language-object, while myth itself is termed the metalanguage, i.e. that language which is used to structure and manipulate everyday language. On the level of everyday language, the signifier is the meaning" but on the level of myth, es the form. The signified remains the "conceptin both cases. That which is the "sign" on the first level, however, is equated to "signification" at the level of myth. For example, he deconstructs a photograph of a black man saluting the French flag on the cover of Paris-Match and explores the layers of meaning this image conveys, with the physical image on the paper serving as the original signifier and the signified being the literal reading of patriotism in terms of a loyal citizen saluting the flag, while the deeper or "mythological" meaning of the entire sign becomes a reinforcement of French imperialism by implying that France's non-White "citizens" in colonial territories were content and fulfilled in their role relative to the Empire. Myth being a "second order semiological system", the sign in the first system, which in this case is "the purposeful mixture of Frenchness and militariness" embodied in the figure of the black citizen saluting the flag, becomes a signifier in the second system that represents a bourgeoisie ideological glorification of Empire.There are three potential ways to relate to myth, according to Barthes, as a producer, reader or decipherer of mythological speech. The task of the mythologist is to delve beneath several layers of meaning to uncover the ideological structure at the base, exposing the deceptive innocence of mythical speech as a sham.
More summaries about the Mythologies