#Barthes

[thirdity]

Myth does not deny things, on the contrary, its function is to talk about them; simply, it purifies them, it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation but of a statement of fact.

Roland Barthes, Mythologies

[dreams-of-mutiny]

“The voracious consumption of images makes it impossible to close your eyes. The punctum presupposes an ascesis of seeing. Something musical is inherent in it. This music only sounds when you close your eyes, when you make "an effort at silence." Silence frees the image from the "usual blabla" of communication. Closing your eyes means "making the image speak in silence." This is how Barthes quotes Kafka: “We photograph things to drive them away from the spirit. My stories are a way of closing my eyes.. »”

― Byung-Chul Han, Saving Beauty

[leportraitducadavre]

About DoA and its use by the fandoms

It's been quite a while since I've been here, I wasn't sure about posting anything new (more so this, as it's still incomplete) but dear lord, every couple of weeks I receive a notification of someone demonizing me because I decided to critique their character instead of Kishimoto, using the "blame the writing and not the character" and all that idiocy as their primary argument. So, I've decided to post this in order for you to understand what that type of "defense" actually entails.

I should note that this post has no conclusion of its own, I personally won't be dictating what you should think about this matter as that's a personal conviction, it's my desire to give you different perspectives on the subject (of course my own ideology is intertwined with the text, so it should be easy to see where I stand) as to give you tools to understand, basically, the arguments you're using.

It's a long post, so everything will be under the cut.

“Death of the Author” is a theory created by Barthes in 1967, roughly speaking, it’s presented as a juxtaposition to the idea that the Author, as a metaphorical God, has imbued the text with a single meaning–what Barthes does by presenting this idea is to argue against the power that the Author continues to have inside the text because he says, “writing is the destruction of every voice”; therefore, imposing the Author on a text limits its meanings, as then only one true meaning exists, which is the one “Author-God” gave it.

Barthes’s concept isn’t without logic: if The Reader does not bring the fictional product/situation/character to their own perspective (that is, their individual reality), it is impossible to give it verisimilitude. Only through this process can we appropriate fiction. And we can’t “appropriate it” in the same parameters or spheres of understanding (social, political, economic, and cultural) of the Author. What Barthes says is that the textual meaning can’t be located in its “origin” but in its “destination,” thus,  Readers are constantly working to create the meaning of text.

The main issue with this perspective is that it implies that the relationship with a text is bipartite, as the text either exists in relation to its Creator or in relation to its Reader; it also implies that a work of literature (as Barthes calls it a “tissue with signs”) is of no more value than a User’s Manual or a flyer as they too contain signs to communicate information.

The most important thing about this essay, however, is the notion that a fictional work stops being from The Author the moment they write the last paragraph, as it now belongs to The Readers; in this process, each Reader performs a different work, as they bring their own ideology to the text.

The existence of the relationship between text and Reader isn’t questionable, but it doesn’t exist in a void: in order to believe, we have to detach the text from the Author’s intent (which they definitely gave, as every writing is ideological) and their framework. It’s true that we can read a work without knowing the Author’s name, nationality, and social and economic background; but we see their ideological position through their creation, as all of those aspects we don’t know about were intrinsic to the text at the time of its creation and development. This is not to say that The Author’s “intention” will be one hundred percent understood or will translate as intended to every Reader, but their “death” isn’t as spontaneous nor as definitive as some might think.

“To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing. Such a conception suits criticism very well, the latter then allotting itself the important task of discovering the Author beneath the work: when the Author has been found, the text is 'explained' - victory to the critic.” Barthes.

The thing about this phrase is that the “Critics” Barthes speaks of no longer exist, as they don’t hold the same level of power inside literary works as they used to. To understand what he meant we need to take into account the context in which he wrote the piece and the intention behind it, that is, we should ask Barthes what he meant; and if he denies those that go against his original intention, he’s contradicting his own principle.

Literary discourse is opposed to truth—truth as in the culturally affirmed “truth”. This distinction between truth and fiction allowed the author to avoid the “appropriation” that overwhelmed science discourses. Michel Foucault, who like Barthes was against structuralism and opposed the concept of expression, asked the question as to why the author even assumed the position of the “ideological figure”. That, Foucault stated, resulted from considering the author to be the source of meaning—authorial intention. That’s the reason why Foucault and Barthes both opposed this method of “closed reading”. As the author functions as the figure who controls meaning, his “mystification” in this regard is linked to the control of distribution and profits.

Now, the power is no longer of the “critics” Barthes antagonized, but with the masses' interpretation of the text, which is not one but multiple ones, as not one reading stays the same in the vast ocean of consumers. It's there that the debate starts, and it's there that the debate ends because it becomes the "let's agree to disagree" ad infinitum. There's, again, no exact reason why the debate should have an ending, as the text trespasses time, and its reading is modified by historical events that impact the cultural spheres.

“The Reader” here is a figure of speech because it is a term used to define a large group of people with different histories, cultures, and interpretations.

If The Reader approaches the text (by taking ownership of the story and its characters) and decides, for instance, to give a character what “they truly deserve”, then they strip that character of their overall value. A character exists within the story for a purpose; and if we strip Shylock (Merchant of Venice) of the context Shakespeare wrote him for, he loses his long-term importance as he exists as the opposing force in the narrative. If he suddenly has nothing to oppose, then he ceases to exist as Shylock. If he’s suddenly given a “happy ending” (as him obtaining the pound of flesh from Antonio’s heart; or him rebelling against Antonio’s and Portia’s revenge request, because Portia as a lawyer not only saved Antonio’s life but also gave him the retribution she thinks he deserved), he stops being the Tragic Character and loses the relevance. By taking away a character’s place in the narrative and giving them a new story, personality, or actions (which The Reader thinks a specific character should’ve had), readers create an entirely new character inside an entirely new story and framework that simply shares some vague similarities to its canon counterpart; furthermore, they’re not giving the character what they deserve; they’re giving their own character (as the story is nothing but their own interpretation) what they think they deserve.

In the same manner, The Author is no longer relevant or talented, as now, the brilliance lies in the readers' interpretations of the writing, not in The Author’s work that, apparently, simply “allowed” The Readers to reach their brilliance.

Two “new” approaches to a story, Watsonian and Doylist, add layers to this issue: the former implies that we can answer questions about the story by simply looking inside the work’s universe and not outside it, whilst the latter is concerned with answers outside the framework of the text–meaning, in real life. 

If a person considers the Watsonian approach the only well-founded one, then the answers are subjected to The Reader’s interpretation, which as I’ve said are many; so if the Author gives their input, they do by becoming a Reader, which makes their vision just as valid as the one of any other. With this approach, the Truth (implying that the text has a singular meaning) does not exist, or rather, there isn’t a single truth as there is a “coexistence of truths”. 

If, however, they decide to see the story through the Doylist approach, The Reader assumes they know the only intention the Author had; but how do we know the author's “true” intention? Even the use of interviews to state what they did or did not achieve is… debatable because the interviews are clippings of conversations not chosen by The Authors themselves but by PR teams –never mind the fact that if there are many of these “PR members”, The Author can appear to contradict themselves or be untruthful.

So how do we try to (try, is a keyword in this) reconcile the Author's intent with the Author themselves? We look at the story and its framework and at the structure and the plot as a whole.

Shakespeare’s narrative introduces Shylock as the antagonist; we aren’t supposed (in a very generic manner) to care for him or his destiny, because what we should want is Antonio’s safety; those who read the story today and see this structure will quickly draw the conclusion: “Shakespeare was an antisemite, so Shylock deserves better.” Yet Shakespeare, who again, built Shylock as the opposition to the framework’s stance, gave him the strongest, most humane speech inside the story. We’re given his perspective; we are told of Antonio’s mistreatment towards him; and we are forced to learn the reasoning behind his animosity:

To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

Shylock exists as a villain-like figure, yet “villain-Shylock” doesn’t exist outside this speech. The reason why we care for Shylock is that we know about his pain, and we know about his pain because Shakespeare allowed us to see it. The Reader gave Shylock complexity because the complexity existed prior to The Reader’s intervention; it’s, however, The Reader that vindicated him, but they didn’t do it alone.

Characters aren’t independent of the Author’s decision-making process, Readers can't “blame the author” and spare the character from any responsibility as they are the vehicle The Author uses inside the story; neither the story nor the character or The Author has to endorse The Reader’s views because that doesn’t diminish the work’s value.

There are many ways in which a reader becomes frustrated with a story; a very common route of this event transpires when the consumer finds the ending dissatisfying. The dissatisfaction with the conclusion (and I’m using that word as reading or engaging with any form of art it’s both an ideological and emotional process) does not detract from the “brilliance” of the plot.

If we decide to forever and ever separate the Watsonian and Doylist perspectives to study them in a manner that they shouldn’t interact then we take the events that don't fit our perspective of the text as mere coincidences; furthermore, we kill the author because our brilliance, our appreciation, our “writing” of the story is better. The Reader becomes the Author’s murderer by “divine right”. The children rebel against their parent, who metaphorically created them for that specific fictional universe, and they murder them, creating, at last, the creature: the text. The inheritance that is “rightfully” theirs.

Detractors of the theory accuse DoA of becoming a means for cultural erasure, in their words, if they’re going to read everything of themselves into the work, then what happens to the cultures that are told through art? Is their art meant to be repackaged, remodeled—or erased for The Reader to find their brilliance through fiction? There’s a case that perfectly exemplifies this where a Western portion of Naruto's fandom considered Tobirama to be “femininely” designed because of his use of “make-up,” yet if we look further inside the same story and the author’s origins, we can easily draw a connection between that specific character’s design and Kabuki Theatre, where actors use Kumadori in bright colors in order to emphasize veins, muscles, blood vessels or the connection of the Samurai to a Kami, becoming Hitokami. The lack of knowledge from Western Readers about Japanese Culture prevented them from seeing the reasoning behind specific aesthetic choices giving sense to a specific design by coding it “feminine”, instead of tracing down its conceptual roots.

But, with all these points made, various questions arise: if the Author’s Intention doesn’t necessarily translate into the Readers’, which text is more important? It’s the text to be read as the Author intended or as the Reader interprets it? Could both of these visions coexist or are they bound to fight for dominance indefinitely?

[libriaco]

Dichiarazione

«Sono innamorato? – Sì, poiché sto aspettando».

R. Barthes, [Fragments d'un discours amoureux, 1977], Frammenti di un discorso amoroso, Torino, Einaudi, 1997 [Trad. R. Guideri]

[soulbornincoldandrain]

this too, is yoohankisms

- michelet by rolant barthes, about Michelet as a historian, an author reader and victim to narrative

[cocoon2010]

The world enters languages as a dialectical relation between activities, between human actions; it comes out of myth as a harmonious display of essences. A conjuring trick has taken place; it has turned reality inside out, it has emptied out the history and filled it with nature, it has removed from things their human meaning as so to make them signify a human insignificance.

[rinconliterario]

Diario de un duelo. Roland Barthes, 1977.

[liberatedlilgirlblue]

Roland Barthes, A lover's discourse: fragments (1978)

[heavenlyyshecomes]

My ideas about photography changed during this period, for I saw that a photograph can work in more than one way. I had always distrusted the medium for its insistent claims to reality, the way it invites an acquisitive, violent gaze, and its usefulness to a worldview that crops and categorizes and frames, that reduces a human face to a racial type. But now I saw that there is also something else: a shadow. The imprint of an irreducible presence. If one side of a photograph gloats, “The eye can know everything,” the other side murmurs, “The eye knows almost nothing.” Almost nothing. Only a flicker, a trace that can’t be grasped, that can’t be built up into an official record or a proper historical study. A mark that’s not useful as evidence but simply evident. Untranslatable. “What I can name cannot really prick me,” writes Barthes.

—Sofia Samatar, The White Mosque: A Memoir

[zurich-snows]

ÇA-A-ETÉ? AGAINST BARTHES Joan Fontcuberta

Walter Benjamin aside, the most cited essay on photography in history is without a doubt Camera Lucida. It is Roland Barthes’ final book, and was published shortly before his death. With his poetic gaze and theoretical reflections, Barthes develops key concepts in the book, such as punctum and studium, which have since been incorporated into the heritage of photographic criticism. In one of the most significant passages, we find another central idea: “In Photography I can never deny that the thing has been there. There is a superimposition here: of reality, and of the past. And since this constraint exists only for Photography, we must consider it, by reduction, as the very essence, the noeme of Photography. What I intentionalize in a photograph is neither Art nor Communication, it is Reference, which is the founding order of Photography. Photography's noeme will therefore be: ‘That-has-been’” [Ça-a-été].

This ça-a-été constitutes the ontological bulwark of photography’s documentary value: without the certainty of “that-has-been”, all visual testimony ends up delegitimated. This is why it could be beneficial to analyse photo-journalistic snapshots in light of this criteria. For example, as a case study, we could take the photographic archive of the now-closed Mexican journal Alerta, a tabloid dedicated to blood and guts news stories, which in Latin America is referred to as “nota roja” [red note]. If we do an analysis, we are surprised to see how frequently the iconological pattern of the gesture of pointing appears: a figure in the image (a victim, a witness, an “expert”, whoever) points with a finger at someone or something in the composition to draw attention to it. These are theatrical, artificial situations where it is clear that the model is following the reporter’s instructions, while nevertheless making doubly clear the pretension of applying he principle of ça-a-été, in a way that is as naïve as it is rudimentary. We are witness to an effect of superimposed indexicalities: one passed down through photography and the other of the finger (the index) pointing. Both the camera lens and the finger focalise our perception towards something that has gone by. Yet the staging is so naïve, rudimentary and artificial that instead of emphasising, what it does is problematise the validating value of the camera, especially in genres like forensic and news photography, which should be characterised precisely by an aseptic, derhetorized treatment of information.

Barthes, perhaps, fascinated by the theatricality he had also dedicated enthusiastic studies to, sought to pass over this drift: “What is theatricality?”, he asked in 1971. “It is not decorating representation, it is unlimiting language.” Very well, then, but if so, ça-a-été is no longer a guarantee of objectivity, inasmuch as it explores staging. A triple staging, in fact, as all photography implies the staging of the object, the gaze and of the photographic device itself. It is from the conciliation of these stagings that language emerges. We can decide to not limit it, we can grant it all freedom available to it, but at the cost of breaking the contract of verisimilitude.

Unmasked by the overplayed gesticulation of accusing or pointing fingers, we discover that the noeme heralded by Barthes is more a theatrical operation than one of reference. “That has been”, indeed, but what, in fact, has really been? It is imperative to ask this when there is no spontaneity, but rather construction. Yet worst of all is that photography, in and of itself, tells us very little about “that”. Very little beyond scenery and costumes.

Joan Fontcuberta

[thirdity]

Myth hides nothing and flaunts nothing: it distorts; myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflection. [...] Driven to having either to unveil or to liquidate the concept, it will naturalize it. We reach here the very principle of myth: it transforms history into nature.

Roland Barthes, Mythologies

[date-prisa-estamos-leyendo]

Kate Zambreno, hablando de Barthes, cuenta que la sociedad permite una duración específica para el duelo. Una vez ha pasado ese tiempo, debe dejar de dolerte.

Llego con tres heridas, Violeta Gil.

[sammeldeineknochen]

Eines der Kennzeichen unserer Welt ist vielleicht diese Umkehrung: unser Leben folgt einem verallgemeinerten Imaginären.

Roland Barthes: "Die helle Kammer", S.129

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Regard, objet, symbole, la Tour [Eiffel] est tout ce que l'homme met en elle, et ce qui est infini. Spectacle regardé et regardant, édifice inutile et irremplaçable, monde familier et symbole héroïque, témoin d'un siècle et monument toujours neuf, objet inimitable et sans cesse reproduit, elle est le signe pur, ouvert à tous les temps, à toutes les images et à tous les sens, la métaphore sans frein.

- Roland Barthes, La tour Eiffel, 1964

Tina Turner was an unrestrained metaphor too.

Photo: Tina Turner et la Tour Eiffel by Peter Lindbergh, 1989.

[detournementsmineurs]

Mia Wasikowska dans "Madame Bovary" de Sophie Barthes, 2014.

[1dontwannagoback]