Mythologies | Roland Barthes | A must for old-school Marxists and modern rhetoricians

Mythologies | Roland Barthes | Entertaining essays, dense critical theory

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Mythologies

	Mythologies Roland Barthes Hill and Wang, 1972 - 159 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"[Mythologies] illustrates the beautiful generosity of Barthes's progressive interest in the meaning (his word is signification) of practically everything around him, not only the books and paintings of high art, but also the slogans, trivia, toys, food, and popular rituals (cruises, striptease, eating, wrestling matches) of contemporary life . . . For Barthes, words and objects have in common the organized capacity to say something; at the same time, since they are signs, words and objects have the bad faith always to appear natural to their consumer, as if what they say is eternal, true, necessary, instead of arbitrary, made, contingent. Mythologies finds Barthes revealing the fashioned systems of ideas that make it possible, for example, for 'Einstein's brain' to stand for, be the myth of, 'a genius so lacking in magic that one speaks about his thought as a functional labor analogous to the mechanical making of sausages.' Each of the little essays in this book wrenches a definition out of a common but constructed object, making the object speak its hidden, but ever-so-present, reservoir of manufactured sense."--Edward W. Said

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A must for old-school Marxists and modern rhetoricians

In Mythologies, Barthes offers a series of snapshots with titles such as "Plastic," "Striptease," "Toys," "The World of Wrestling," and "Operation Margarine." His aim is to reveal the ideological abuse hidden in these myths, which are manufactured to read as reality.

Though complex, Barthes essays are accessible, charming, and funny. I have taught Mythologies to first-year college students, because it does not require its reader to have read volumes of theory to engage in Barthes' clever reflections.

My favorite essay might be "Toys," which demystifies modern (1954-56) French toys as designed to produce consumers ("users") rather than creators. "Toys" exemplifies how, 50 years later, Barthes' myths are still alive and worth reading.

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Entertaining essays, dense critical theory

I was assigned this text as the final leg of a Greek and Roman Mythology course. Having no idea what to expect, I easily read through the collection of short essays and was thoroughly entertained. Even in translation, Barthes is graceful, lighthearted, and humorous in telling of the modern myths surrounding him in 1950s France. A very well-educated philologist, lexicologist, and sociologist, it wasn't until after writing the short essays here compiled that he rigorously developed his semiological/structuralist theories. Those with knowledge of structural linguistics and semiology and those without such a background alike will certainly enjoy every essay of this brief collection.

Furthermore, the longer essay, "Myth Today," which follows the shorter essays published originally in the 50s is replete with extremely interesting, albeit dense, critical theory. While someone with little knowledge of structural linguistics or semiology will have some difficulty with this final essay, it is certainly worth the struggle.

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Telling the 'Truth' about Advertisements and Modern Society

This is one of the great mythology books of the twentith century.And still relevant today.That people are so scripted by the slogan,we have forgotten the 'essense' of the product.That we have bought into the cosmetic idealisation of the image,rather than the true appearance of the natural object or root meaning of the word.This philosophical book is deep reading,not just for literary francophiles, still around today.That we are aroused and mystified by the ritual act and the shiny decor,surrounding the hidden object,rather than the nuts and bolts of the product itself alone.And its the mystique surrounding our language,toys,actors and art-work; that inspires, entertains ,educates the soul and mind of modern people.Without mythology ,the core of society would wither.And mankind would simply revert back to the dark sterile caves of oblivion.

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Myth as Ideology.

A problem with the take on myth that Barthes develops in his Mythologies is that he privileges the illusory distinction between myth and revolutionary speech. Myth for him is speech that naturalizes the ideology and relations of the bourgeoisie, while revolutionary speech upsets this. Both, however, are charged with producing the situation the present and interpret. Myth is productive. Myth is the revolutionary speech of bourgeois interests as seen from its receivers rather than its producers. Revolutionary speech is myth as seen by its producers. Producing his own myths is man inventing himself.

Barthes does, however, provide a tool kit for examining and analyzing the mythic. He also created a field guide for identifying species of mythologizing. From these tools an interested party could derive tools for the intentional production of myth.

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