Enigmatic Turns: An Analytical Barthesian Reading

This paper focuses on tracking, commenting and categorizing the various enigmas in a novella (a ghost story) by Henry James titled The Turn of the Screw by segmenting the same to an arbitrary number of contiguous fragments or units of meaning termed as lexias and filtering them through Hermeneutic code, one among the five codes introduced by Barthes (1974). The analysis offered in this study reveals the various stages of enigma formation, maintenance and disclosure in the mentioned novella, which in spite of being well-known for its mystifying quality has never received a systematic structural categorization of its enigma reservoir. Through various instances borrowed from the mentioned novella, it is illustrated how the text tantalizes and/or ensnares the reader, blocks any solutions to the questions raised and finally rewards the patient reader

Keywords:

Novella , structuralist , lexia , hermeneutic code , proairetic code , semic code , symbolic code , referential code , writerly text , readerly text