Essay Questions

How does Roland Barthes explicate gender and sex? Relate to ‘Gender and Queer Theory.”

In “The Castration Camp” Barthes elucidates, “At first glance, Sarrasine sets forth a complete structure of the sexes (two opposing terms, a mixed and a neuter). This structure might then be defined in Phallic terms: (1) to be the phallus (the men: the narrator, M. De Lanty, Sarrasine, Bouchardon); (2) to have it (the women: Marianina, Mme de Lanty, the girl the narrator is in love with, Clotilde); (3) to have it and not to be it (the androgynous: Filippo, Sappho); not to have it or to be it (the castrato).”

The taxonomies above are grounded on the sexual organs which regulate the roles that are partaken by the members of the particular grouping. The symbolic accountabilities assigned to each individual diverges momentously in the respective sexes subject to one’s ranking in the society. Furthermore, the symbolic positions administer the inter-personal associations. Sarrassina is a classic text based on how it accommodates divergent sexualities and gender.

What is the significance of the ‘Ironic code?

Barthes explains, “ Stated by the discourse itself, the ironic code is, in principle, an explicit quotation of what someone has said; however, irony acts as a signpost, and thereby it destroys the multivalence we might expect from quoted discourse.” Multivalence results in the literal duplicity which sanctions both the ‘ truth and false’ proclamations. The reader has the accountability of discriminating the implications of the ironic remarks. The ironic code regulates the correctness of all the avowals that are made in a text.

What deductions does Barthes make regarding La Zambinella’s encounter with the snake?

Barthes states, “ the snake episode is both an exemplum (inductive weapon of the old rhetoric and a signifier (referring to a character seme attached in this case to the castrato)… Between the signifier (to be frightened of a snake) and the signified (to be impressionable as a woman) there is the same distance as between the endoxal premise (timid people are afraid of snakes).” La Zambinella’s rejoinder towards the snake is a signifier of her innate fearfulness. Although she is a castrato, she submits to the fright which the snake conjures; thus, she is a fearful persona.