Theory into Practice: Application of Roland Barthes’ Five Codes on Bina Shah’s ‘The Optimist’

The present research applies Roland Barthes structural theory of five codes on The Optimist (2007), a short story by Bina Shah, a promising Pakistani fiction writer of the younger generation. The present study qualitatively examines the selected story in the light of five codes. The study includes brief critical premises of The Optimist and then the application of the five codes as theorized by Barthes on the structure of the story. Relying on the textual analysis, it shows that the selected story is tangled by all the five codes i.e. the proairetic, hermeneutic, semantic, symbolic and cultural codes. The story starts with an enigma, is full of suspense where several elements stand for connotative meaning. It is rich with the cultural references of Pakistani and Western society. Most importantly, binary oppositions (symbolic code) play a central role in the structure of the story. The theme and structure of the story rests on the idea of difference or binary oppositions. The study concludes that the author has created a fine balance in the story through the contrasting personalities of Adnan and Raheela. Their opposing nature, viewpoints, cultures and their perception of reality as opposed to the actual reality provide the basic structure and content to the story.