The different notions of narrative codes in Roland Barthes: the translations of meaning in a concept

Abstract

Although the concept of narrative code is central to Roland Barthes, we note that the author gives it several meanings. The aim of this paper is to analyze the rearticulations of this concept in the author’s main texts and relate them to the different models Barthes referred to in order to understand narrative structuring. At first, the code is used as an articulation of politics in the form of a narrative, relating it to the notion of writing. Later, in the structural framework, it is used as a way of establishing a homology between language and narrative. As from S/Z onwards, however, the code is compared to voices organized in the text, leading to the establishment of various structures that intervene in the formation of the narrative. These changes in the conception of the narrative code imply a change of perspective in the way Barthes understood repetitions and translations of meaning in the narrative composition throughout his work.