Application of Roland Barthes’ Five Codes on Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Story The Black Cat

Abstract

This research focuses on Roland Barthes’ structural theory of five codes on “The Black Cat” a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The study examines the selected story by means of qualitative method in the light of Roland Barthes’ five codes. The paper examines short critical premises of The Black Cat and then the application of the five codes as framed by Barthes’ on the sturucture of the selected story. Based on the textual analysis, it indicates that the selected story covers all the five codes such as Proairetic, hermeneutic, semantic, symbolic, and cultural codes. The selected story begins with an enigma and the story includes many linguistic elements that reflect connatative and hidden meaning. It also includes cultural references of Greek and Roman Mythology. In addition, symbolic code in other words binary oppositions play significant role in the lexico grammatical pattern of the story in terms of love and hate, illusion versus reality, the entirely black cat versus the black cat with white spot on the skin, poor versus rich, sense of innocence versus sense of evil. The research concludes that the author creates a balance in the story by means of the five codes of Barthes. The study suggests that the unnamed narrator’s inner world, viewpoints and his perception of the reality constructs the basic structure and content of the story.