Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - László Dányi: Decoding Decoded Systems: An Interpretation of Steven Millhauser's "In the Penny Arcade"

LÁSZLÓ I) ANY! DECODING DECODED SYSTEMS: AN INTERPRETATION OF STEVEN MILLHAUSER'S "IN THE PENNY ARCADE" In his Untying the Text Robert Young surmises that Roland Barthes' codes of reading operate as "associative fields, a supra-textual organization of notations which impose a certain idea of structure" (Young 134). Barthes distinguishes five codes of reading on the basis of which readers can identify and recognize certain elements in literary works , and can relate them to specific functions. The five codes are the following: The proairetic code controls the manner in which the reader constructs the plot of a literary work. The hermeneutic code involves problems of interpretation, particularly those questions and answers that are raised at the level of plot. The semic code is related to the textual elements which develop the reader's perception of literary characters. The symbolic code governs the reader's construction of symbolic meanings. The referential code is made up by textual references to cultural phenomena. (Hawthorn 20) My assumption is that the aforementioned codes can only be differentiated arbitrarily, therefore in a literary work they are interrelated and they constitute different systems depending on the 9