Myth (GS & AS)

Question 1

Explain the connection between interpellation and Myth

Answer 1

interpellation: being drawn in to take part in / be part of something
> cannot not react!

Question 2

Define Ideology

Answer 2

body of ideas and practices, defending prevailing power structures by promoting values and interests of dominant groups in society

• rationalisation
• naturalisation of culturally specific phenomena

Question 3

Explain the connection between Ideology and Myth

Answer 3

Cultures use Myth to give Ideologies a seemingly natural image or narrative form

Question 4

Explain Barthes second order semiological system

Answer 4

• Saussure’s signifier, signified and sign
  > sign is product of arbitrary relation between signifier and signified
• sign emptied and turned into signifier
  > now relation between signified and signifier is NOT arbitrary > myth’s motivation

Question 5

Explain the difference between language and meta-language

Answer 5

meta-language: talks about things

language: talks of things

Question 6

Define Barthes’ idea of Myth

Answer 6

• Barthes 1915 - 1980
• vehicle for promotion and maintenance of bourgeois ideology through secular narrative models
• means of cultural and ideological criticism

> synchronic approach
Myth works on the individual
Myth as type of speech
based on structuralism and de Saussure

Question 7

Name some of the functions of Myth

Answer 7

• helps us understand
• imposes on us
• distorts
• deforms
• reduces complexity
• universalization
• naturalization
• dehistoricization
• depoliticization

Question 8

Name the three aspects that influence the analysis of Myth

Answer 8

• Location: where does it appear
• Context: social / historical context
• Analyser: personal social / cultural formation