the narrative (Annex 2) which creates narrative tension. By telling us that someone 'had been sleeping', we now anticipate them waking up, thus creating a small structure of narrative tension and expectation. Out of these units, the whole narrative has a forward drive. This is connected with Barthes' notion of the “readerly” text. The reader assimilates distinct pieces of information in a prescribed order. Even acts of psychological introspection in the novel are classified by the reader in terms of the occurrence of movements or activities. Thus, the proairetic code constitutes the text as a location with spatial and temporal dimensions through which the reader moves. Semic Code: the resonances of the text The semic code concerns meaning but at the level of connotation in relation to character, that is the meanings beyond the 'literal' denotation of the words: the resonances, additional linguistic associations associated with character. The semic code will thus work to construct an evolving character through signifiers like name, costume, physical appearance, psychological traits, speech, and lexis, which may also have different connotations in different contexts elsewhere in the story. Symbolic Code: the symbolic structure of the text The symbolic code produces a structure of (often paired) symbolic meanings that accumulate throughout the text to establish a larger structure in which the meanings of the story unfold. These symbolic clusters of meanings might be around such oppositions as male/female, inside/outside, hidden/revealed, hot/cold. Some of the key symbolic processes in Sarrasine, according to Barthes, are (1) rhetorical (transgression of the rhetorical figure: antitheses), (2) sexual (transgression of the sex: castration), and (3) economic (transgression of the origin of wealth) (XCII). This structure is not itself stable and the work of the 'writerly' reader is to pursue these structures until they begin to break down, a symbolic collapse that is a key part of the pleasures of the text. Cultural Code: the background knowledge of the text The cultural code is constituted by the points at which the text refers to common bodies of knowledge. These might be agreed, shared knowledge (the real existence of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré) or an assertion of axiomatic truths (the assertion in the first sentence that all men daydream at parties, no matter how lively the party is). He calls the latter a 'gnomic code'. Voices The five codes together constitute a way of interpreting the text which suggests that textuality is interpretive; that