Barthes on Secrets, Titles and Frames

 

 

 

 Barthes also took a fascinating look at a story by Edgar Allan Poe called

''The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar’,*

starting with its title.

 

In the story, Monsieur Valdemar is hypnotised at the moment of his death,

and maintains the ability for speech for seven months,

until the recounter of the tale attempts to bring him back to life.

 

The title ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar’is thus speaking about the forthcoming text, and is thus an example of a 'parergon',

much as a frame round a picture can say ‘I am valuable’, ‘I am contemporary’, ‘I am rustic’, and so on.

In this case by posing itself as 'The Facts in the Case...' it implies

that what follows will be a scientific treatise.

It creates an image for what is to follow.

 

Barthes introduces his concept of the Title as follows:

 

“…society, for commercial motives,

needing to assimilate the text to a product, to a commodity,

requires markers: the title’s function is to mark the beginning of a text.

i.e., to constitute the text as a commodity….[t]his metalinguistic announcement has an aperitive function:

the readers appetite is to be whetted (a procedure akin to “suspense”).”

 

(Translation by Richard Howard in Roland Barthes

The Semiotic Challenge, University of California Press, 1994.)

 

 

The Title, then, whether it appears on a book,

on a poster for a film, or even on a grave stone, says:

‘Here’s a Secret for you, and it’s about…’

It is the sign that a Portal exists,

an aperitif, giving taste of what may be beyond.

 

But it is not only the Title which can have this function – the raconteur, too, can

do it within the story itself… not just in the title:

 

Frames within Frames

 

 

Poe, in his tale, tells

‘It is now rendered necessary that I give the facts –

as far as I comprehend them myself. They are, succinctly, these:’

 

Again, Barthes points out, we have an example of metalanguage.

The fictional ‘narrator’ of the tale, the scientist who conducted the experiment on M Valdemar,

is announcing the start of a story within the story –

language, again, at a different level to that of the tale of M Valdemar itself - 

a Frame within a Frame.

 

The tale proceeds to the point where M Valdemar dies,

and everyone expects the replies to the narrator’s questions will cease.

 

But Poe continues

‘I now feel that I have reached a point of this narrative

at which every reader will be startled into positive disbelief.

It is my business, however, simply to proceed.’

 

Another example of the tale referring to itself

- of metalanguage – a teaser, another sub-frame introducing

the next phase of the story..

 

The Frame, like the Title, refers to the work of art – says something about it.

It is neither purely of the work of art itself, nor or the viewer, but it ‘talks’ to the viewer about the work of art.

It is the sales pitch for what follows, or for what it contains or displays,

the advertising, whether for the work as a whole,

or embedded in the work in order

to advertise a component.

 

And it is Universal.

 

It is there in the red skin of an apple,

the place setting at the dinner table, and the display case in a store or museum.

It was there in the outer appearance of the famous Trojan Horse.

 

T Kincade

 

It is there in the half-obscured patch of sunlight beyond the cottage…

it announces it. It is all we know about it,

and it is tempting us to know more.

 

It was there in the Obstacle in the Pirate Joke ‘a seagull crapped in me eye…’

 

It is there in the clothes we wear, the car we drive. It can be seen in the technique of ‘Foreshadowing’ in the art of cinema.

It is there in the hushed but frenzied strings in Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony introducing a new theme.

 

www.channel2000.com/news/stories/news-970904-161558.html

 

And a biological parallel is found in the body of the virus –

the shell within which the viral DNA is found. The shell needs to be able to attach itself to the target,

find something which will hold it on the surface of the target long enough

for the viral DNA to be injected.

 

 

This cultural tool draws attention to something,

it focuses us on it...

turns on our exploratory behaviour,

and sometimes adds to the fun by then hiding it, or by confusing or delaying its interpretation.

It is our first glimpse of what lies beyond the portal, and as an aperitif

it is thus also a perfect

opportunity to lead the reader up the

garden path.

 

And now… let’s go into

FOCUS

a little

 

 

 

*‘Textual Analysis of a Tale by Edgar Allan Poe’

(in Semiotique Narrative et Textuelle (Larousse) 1973),