He established from the start that “myth is a system of communication, that it is a message.” Yet, “everything can be a myth provided that it is conveyed by a discourse.” It helped me understand it more when he elaborated that myth is not an object, a concept, or an idea.

The development of myth is driven by social forces where reason, intention, and a sense of attraction affect people’s sensibilities on contemporary social value systems and cultural associations.Īs Barthes looked at the semiology of the process of myth creation, noting Swiss linguist and semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure’s insights on the connections between an object (the signified) and its linguistic representation (the signifier) and how the two are connected, as well as de Saussure’s system of sign analysis, the addition of a second level where signs advance to the level of myth came in and he acknowledged how the sign itself is used as a signifier to create a new meaning, which is then the signified.īarthes expressed that “Myth is a type of speech.” At the same time, myth is bound to language to build its own system.

From how I understood it, myth is interestingly both strong and fragile – it can be easily destroyed or changed based on how culture signifies and grants meaning to it. In presenting the groundwork for semiology and its relationship to myth, I got to the starting point of examining current forms of existence and revealing the ideological nature of culture and people’s fondness for mythmaking. In reading French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician Roland Barthes’ “Myth Today” from his book “Mythologies,” I found myself more open to the nature of cinema as a theoretical discussion. In response to: The section “Myth Today” from the book “Mythologies ” by Roland Barthes A response paper for my Advanced Film Theory and Criticism class

Mythologies by roland barthes