Summary Of Roland Barthes Mythology

In Roland Barthes’ book, Mythologies, he studied about the mass culture of France. With Saussure’s study on semiotics, he criticized the “language of mass culture” and the production of meaning in relation to the society, as to why he termed mass culture as Myths “to bless the mess.”
Using Saussure’s study as his background or basis he began to question as to how these meanings came to be. Did these sign systems came naturally or brought about a certain existence of an object, people, or phenomena? Are these meaning decided upon the people or created by a select few? These are the questions; Barthes tried to answer in his study.
First, we must know what a myth is. Barthes described myth as a type of speech: “It is a system of communication,

It is a language of representation with a significant meaning at a significant time. However, unlike other signifiers (that will be discussed further in this paper), myth is not arbitrarily created. Broadly, myth belongs in the science of signs that is semiotics.
“Semiology is the science of forms, since it studies significations apart from their content (Bathes, 1987).” Myth belonging to semiotics, it has a semiological system. Since semiotic is a system, it constitutes parts. Semiotic system has three parts: signifier, signified and sign. Signifier is the meaning of the sign as we see it, the physical form. For example, the letters J U S T I C E, how we see it that is the signifier. On the other hand, signified is the concept you associate the sign to, let us take once again the example mentioned above, when you see the signifier, the letters: J U S T I C E, the meaning you associate with it is the word itself as justice. The last part is sign, the combination of signifier and

Meaning in terms of it being the sign in the first-order level that is full of value and at the same time form, the signifier in the second-order level that in value is still empty. When it became a meaning, it already had a value and became part of history. As when it becomes a form, it leaves everything behind, leaves even the history of the signifier with again only the image or letters remain. However, form doesn’t hinder meaning it only lessens or dilutes it and sees it as a distant past. Now let us look at the second part, the signified. While the signifier takes away history, it is also determined, historical and intentional which is carried over to the signified, thus the myth is motivational. It is also needed to know that it is possible to have plenty of signifiers to one signified part for one importance in mythology is the repetition of it in different forms. It is through repetition that the intention is seen. The last part of the mythology level, the signification. The signification is the “myth itself.” It is now the combination of the mythical form and mythical concept. Since, signification is the myth itself, the myth doesn’t hides things but rather distorts them to become a particular meaning. Myth is defined by its intention. Motivation is needed in myth to duplicate it. The nature of mythical signification is motivated by the concept rather than to