LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 22:7 July 2022
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Gail Godwin’s A Southern Family –
Codes of Life and Verbal Diagram

Dr. A. Kalyani
Advisor
Vellore Institute of Technology
Chennai
drkalyanianbu@gmail.com


Courtesy: www.amazon.com

Gail Godwin commenting on the novel remarks, "in A Southern Family I found the writing there much denser; you have to sometimes go back and re-read a sentence, and then follow it through once more to get all the threads of it." (Xie 169).

“The New York Times finds ‘A Southern Family' to be “a rich, complex book” in which the author is “in full bloom and at her mindful best. Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post admires the “dense populous world” of this “Psychologically acute” novel an “ambitious book that entirely fulfills its ambitions” (Cheney 229).


Courtesy: www,amazon.com

Barthes five codes of structuralism is applied to the single text A Southern Family to get all the threads of the novel together. Structuralists in general, place one book in particular and link it with other books, but Barthes places the five codes in particular and moves into one text . By applying all the five codes of Barthes to the novel, all the minute details can be understood.

The work throws light on the five ‘Barthesian Codes’ of structuralism for the analysis of the literary text. It also contains examples of all the codes exemplified in this novel. The five codes of Barthes illustrated in Gail Godowin’s, ‘A Southern Family’, are the Proairectic code, Hermeneutic code, Cultural code, Semic code and symbolic code. Gail Godwin’s A Southern Family as ‘Verbal Diagram’ deals with the five codes in the novel. The mysterious death of Theo Quick is the Proairectic code as it is the central event of the action, around which the entire novel revolves. The Hermeneutic code solves the mystery behind Theo Quick’s death because none is able to certify whether it is a murder or suicide. The cultural code is highlighted on three basic Christian beliefs such as the importance of love, the Christian concept of Heaven and the soul’s preparation to meet God

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. A. Kalyani
Advisor
Vellore Institute of Technology
Chennai
drkalyanianbu@gmail.com
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