This essay will discuss the Star Wars universe from a structuralist view point discussing the use of stereotypical, monomyth narrative structures to represent the signified and myths of American culture. I will discuss the binaries of light, dark, alien, human, freedom, control and how there contrasting binaries relate to the negative arbitrary nature of signification. More specifically these differences of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships in the movies depiction of plot, special effects and character development. These concepts and mise en scenes relation to the process of signification the signifier and signified what Saussere coins the sign.
The Paradigmatic relations is that concerning substitution, the categories of words …show more content…
The core plot line of Star Wars begins with the Imperial forces capture of Princess Lelia, her rescue from Luke Skywalker, Han solo and the rebel forces and the return of justice to the galaxy in this way it is inexplicably simple. But Star Wars reworks a collection of old stories comics, the movies of Flash Gordon, Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars series of books and creates a wholelistic but completely individual world. One that creates a new modern mythology from the popular culture of the past a collage of the mythology and iconic (not in the Piercian sense) signs. This emphasises the modality of the sign which depending on the code and the larger cultural meanings of Star Wars patriarchal society, racism, sexism; the myths whose residues as second order signifiers still exist in the interpreters of the sign. Myth as "the primary language of historical memory: a body of traditional stories that have, over time, been used to summarize the course of our collective history"; myths not only make up these stories, they also "assign ideological meanings to that history" (Richard Stolkin, 70) these larger cultural meaning of America Star Wars is so intertwined with. Furthermore every interpretation is different with the prominence of black and evil more relevant to African Americans viewers perhaps this is to say the signifier and signified is never static rather different in the context much like Stanely Fish’s interpretive communities."[...] many of the
The Paradigmatic relations is that concerning substitution, the categories of words …show more content…
The core plot line of Star Wars begins with the Imperial forces capture of Princess Lelia, her rescue from Luke Skywalker, Han solo and the rebel forces and the return of justice to the galaxy in this way it is inexplicably simple. But Star Wars reworks a collection of old stories comics, the movies of Flash Gordon, Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars series of books and creates a wholelistic but completely individual world. One that creates a new modern mythology from the popular culture of the past a collage of the mythology and iconic (not in the Piercian sense) signs. This emphasises the modality of the sign which depending on the code and the larger cultural meanings of Star Wars patriarchal society, racism, sexism; the myths whose residues as second order signifiers still exist in the interpreters of the sign. Myth as "the primary language of historical memory: a body of traditional stories that have, over time, been used to summarize the course of our collective history"; myths not only make up these stories, they also "assign ideological meanings to that history" (Richard Stolkin, 70) these larger cultural meaning of America Star Wars is so intertwined with. Furthermore every interpretation is different with the prominence of black and evil more relevant to African Americans viewers perhaps this is to say the signifier and signified is never static rather different in the context much like Stanely Fish’s interpretive communities."[...] many of the