Abstract
This paper provides a Barthesean reading to Qaisra Shahraz’s short story entitled The Escape. This Pakistani English short story represents several enigmatic, symbolic, and cultural elements which need to be discussed and analyzed critically for better understanding of the story. To encode all such elements and to make the text understandable for its readers, this study analyses the narrative in the light of five codes’ theory of Barthes. By this, the paper converts the simple target text into a writerly text. Relying on text-based analysis, the study examines all the proairetic, hermeneutic, semic, symbolic and cultural voices hidden in the narrative. The proairetic and the hermeneutic codes highlight the action-reaction, puzzling and enigmatic elements which altogether construct the plot of the selected story. Herein the words darbar-daig, zakat, chana-chat and sewaiyan etc. connotatively enrich the spiritual significance of the story. Similarly, several words including Eid, Eidhi, gharara, lengha, sherwani, and darbar etc. provide the knowledge of South Asian culture. Finally, this studyargues that the analysis of these codes assists the readers to understand the theme, characterization, and plot of the stor
Sabah Zaib, , Ghulam Mustafa Mashori. (2021) Five Codes in Qaisra Shahraz’s Story The Escape: A Barthesean Reading, The ELF Annual Research Journal, Volume 23, Issue 1.
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