Semiotics within Pride and Prejudice with Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes was heavily involved with the study of semiotics – the study of signs- and wrote his influential book ‘Mythologies’ which includes many examples and demonstrations of its use.
Semiotics itself is the study of signs. This definition alone does not quite capture how broad the subject matter truly is. Semiotics include what we may first think of at the mention of signs: road signs, star signs and the like, however semiotics also includes the study of drawings, photographs, words, sounds and even body language.
Barthes wrote about semiology as he wanted people to deepen their understanding of literature, language and society. He specialised on the topic area of non-verbal signs, bringing us our traditional and universally understood connotations which we derive from things such as colours and the emotions they represent.
In the opening scene of Pride and Prejudice we begin by seeing the feet of two horses tearing through the fields, kicking up earth all around them, the riders, of course are Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley. The mere representation of these two men in the first matter of seconds already reflects a great deal about them once we learn to look beyond the surface. The horses kicking up the dirt is very much representative of how as the two new men come into the neighbourhood they are stirring up all of the peace and creating chaos amongst the daughters of the Bennet family. It shows a certain stirring up of trouble, which we come to see later on with Mr. Wycombe and how the Bennet family slowly becomes tested and torn apart by the influence of the new men coming into their sleepy town.
The mere simplicity of Darcy riding a black horse and Bingley a white one shows connotations of them being the complete antithesis of each other. Mr Bingley is sociable and polite, his horse white perhaps to reflect his innocence and integrity. Mr. Darcy’s horse is black, showing connotations of a darker past, a darker personality on the whole and a more mysterious and perhaps dangerous image is built up of him. We could see that it is an almost literal image of Mr Darcy himself being a dark horse as Mr. Bingley is the main focus of the Bennet household. The contrast of the horses’ colours could also show how even though Darcy and Bingley are the opposites of each other; they complement each other, like a yin and yang.
References:
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem01.html
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