Roland Barthes

Exploring Structural Theory

Barthes (1915 – 1980) was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, social theory, anthropology and post-structuralism. His theory on Media-Codes was important to the media in structural terms.

Enigma Codes

The Hermeneutic Code (HER)

The Hermeneutic Code (or Enigma code) refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the reader. The full truth is often avoided. The purpose of the author in this is typically to keep the audience guessing, arresting the enigma, until the final scenes when all is revealed and all loose ends are tied off and closure is achieved.

Action Code {The Proairetic Code (ACT)}

The Proairetic Code (Action code) also builds tension, referring to any other action or event that indicates something else is going to happen, and which hence gets the reader guessing as to what will happen next.

The Hermeneutic and Proairetic Codes work as a pair to develop the story's tensions and keep the reader interested. Barthes described them as:

"...dependent on ... two sequential codes: the revelation of truth and the coordination of the actions represented: there is the same constraint in the gradual order of melody and in the equally gradual order of the narrative sequence."

Barthes’ theory suggests that by not fully explaining something and creating a mystery, it keeps the audience guessing about what will happen. By not explaining certain scenarios, shots and plot lines it leaves the audience to try and work out what the film is about and thus would be encouraged to go and see the film.

Best examples of the enigma code being used in trailers are in horror trailers. This is because of the “monster” would not be revealed as this would ruin the element of shock, surprise and mystery about  it.