Narrative Codes and Theorists

A theorist called Barthes came up with hermeneutic (enigma) and proairetic (action) codes in terms of music videos.


There are two ways of creating suspense in narrative, the first caused by unanswered questions, the second by the anticipation of an action's resolution.


Roland Barthes wishes to distinguish between the two forces that drive narrative and our own desires to keep reading or viewing a story. The hermeneutic code refers to the plot elements that have the audience questioning the text or film.


A good example of this is often seen in detective narratives which operate primarily with the use of the hermeneutic code. For example we witness a crime scene at the beginning of the film - we can guess that the rest of the film will be devoted to showing how the film got to this moment, or developing the victims/murderers characters.


Ofcourse with hermeneutic codes the audience is not happy until all loose ends and questions are tied at the end - Unless it is a series. With a series directors can leave hermeneutic codes loose ends open in order to leave the audience with a cliff-hanger. In wanting to find out the how and where the loose ends will tie audiences will continue on to watch the next episode/film in the series.


The proairetic code however refers to actions - Plot events that merely lead to other actions. For example, a man aggressively punches another - we would wonder whether the man will respond and whether a fight will break out etc... Suspense in this way is therefore created through action rather than a sense of mystery.

With our music video there is no sense of mystery and therefore would take on moreso a proairetic code however it again is not influenced by any idea of suspense. It is merely an everyday video following a character and his day - The audience can guess where he may be heading and what not but this is not answered in our video as it is somewhat disjunctured from the lyrics - with no specific narrative nor link to the lyrics.