When I finished reading Barthes, the first feeling I was struck with was an overpowering desire to drink. The second feeling I had was that of all the convoluted, obfuscated things that he said, none had me quite so frustrated as his chapter on actions. What exactly is the "problem" with the structural analysis of the character in narrative? Why can the agents of actions not be described as persons? It sounds very logical to me. Characters are people. Why is "the definition of the character according to participation in a sphere of actions"? Meaning that in analysis, the character is called the action.
I read over The Adventures of the Speckled Band a second time and I had a thought. Who is Sherlock Holmes? Who is Watson? Who is Dr. Roylott? That's easy. Holmes is the detective who notices every minute detail around him and can make amazing deductions from these clues to solve mysteries. Watson is his companion who follows him on his investigations, supporting him quietly where he may and noting his discoveries with wonder. Dr Roylott is a violent and unbalanced psychotic who keeps dangerous animals and physically attacks everyone that he sees. These characters are naturally defined not by who they are, but what they do. Perhaps this is what Barthes means.
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3 comments:
Wow, I am glad you posted this thread. I too had trouble understanding his points about characters merely being reduced to their actions, but this cleared it up. I still think that statement is too general to apply to all characters, like the gypsies for example. Where they really known in the story for their actions or their character?
i agree to barry's comment. i mean yeah! i had some problem understanding the writers point about the level of actions of the characters. i don't think that gypsies were known for their actions.In the article, it was only few times when Holmes mention gypsies, that also in a customary discourse.
First of all, thanks for responding to the thread. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who struggled particularly with what Barthes said about actions. In terms of the gypsies you make a very good point; they are indeed known in the story for their character. But you can also think about it this way. The gypsy character is perhaps only a linguistic function. What is the narrative function of the gypsies? It is to mislead the reader from figuring out the mystery thereby keeping the suspense of the story going. How do the gypsies do this? It is because of the shady and mysterious things that gypsies do that their very presence demands that they be considered suspect of any crime committed in their vicinity. Viewed in that light, there is a certain logic in categorizing them, structuraly speaking, as actants rather then people, seeing them more in the light of their actions (shady and mysterious) then their essences or their character.
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