Educators:

StevenSpielberg

The ‘Greimas,’ or ‘Semiotic’

Square,Extended!

Before proceeding with the following slides, you need to familiarise yourself with the previous account of the Greimas Square given as a PowerPoint in the notes for Charles Dickens.

After a short overview of one aspect of Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence – these notes document how a longitudinal exploration of changes in meaning within a media-text can be handled.

Before we start, note that the ideal expansion of a square holds constant the level of generality or specificity by which its terms/objects are being named. For example, if the top-left corner of your square uses the term ‘alive’, it entails that every other term should be similarly adjectival and general, e.g., ‘dead.’ Alternatively, if you use a name, such as Frankenstein, then the other positions must be similarly represented by characters. If you do this, for every square that you develop it will be possible to compare and contrast it with a matching abstract or concrete one, opening up possibilities for discussion of why an idea is always treated in a particular text as abstract or general in the first part of a text, and why it might be represented through a person later one.

As previously discussed, the semiotic square is used in two principal ways: a ‘semantic’ approach identifying a given structure of meaning existing at a particular time and place for a given set of observers; and a ‘syntactic’ approach plotting sequences of changed meaning. In these notes it is this second method which is used.

Syntactic Expansion

The idea here is to plot the sequence of changing semantic positions that a specific ‘object’ occupies on an underlying semantic square as one travels through narrative time and finds out about the observing positions of the different protagonists and how they ‘see’ this object. The assumption is that you start by constructing a single square from a pair of contraries which you think will be relevant for such a longitudinal analysis of your text, relative to the ‘objects’ and ‘subjects’ it features.(Typically, three kinds of temporality are considered – that of the narrative, that of the plot, and that of the ‘tactical’ temporality of any sequence followed, i.e., how the sequence of scenes is ‘expressed’.)

Syntactic expansion is usually shown in tabular form and the underlying picturing of the semantic square is often left out – it being assumed that the reader will be able to generate it and its ten positions in their minds. You may prefer to show it!

On the table the rising numbers on the left-hand side identify the order of a particular line of analysis and this allows you to make quick comparisons in your discussion. Using this technique we can follow the movements of meaning taking place in a text in terms of an identified form of temporality (see above), and in terms of the possible shifts of meaning specific objects ‘take on’ for different ‘assumptive’ subjects, e.g., in Hard Times Sissy likes the idea of flowers on a carpet: Gradgrind hates it.

A sample table. The top line identifies the contraries being explored from an underlying semantic square, while the second line gives specific headings.

Contraries:

Pattern/Picture

No.

(of the analysis)

Time / page ref.

Object (s) Object’s position on the square (1-10)

Observing subject

Justification, comment this square assumes the dominance of Gradgrind’s view – Sissy’s is ‘marked’.

1 1854? – or text ref.

carpet 1 Gradgrind Top of positive deixis (top left of the square)

2 1854? – or text ref.

carpet 2 Sissy Jupe Top of negative deixis (top right of the square)

and so on, if comments on patterns and pictures continued.

Using Hard Times, for Gradgrind, and his regard for his star pupil, Bitzer, we get something like this, according to Frederic Jameson.

Contraries: e.g.

Fact/Fancy (Jameson)

No. Time Object (s) Object’s position on the square (1-10)

Observing subject

Justification, comment – Jameson adopts Gradgrind’s initial perspective – note fancy is the marked term.

1 Plot

Ch. 2., pp. 5-6.

Bitzer 1 Gradgrind His demonstration that he ‘knows’ what a horse is.

X? Plot

Ch. ?., pp. ?

Bitzer 7 Author (N.B. this is the reference O. S.)

Dickens indicates his own judgment of Bitzer, seeing him as the repudiation of both fact and fancy, leading to criminality.

and so on … but for Dickens as reference O. S. we get …

If you are using syntactic analysis one table may suffice for the whole text; it’s a strategic judgement on your part as to how the ‘object’ being studied is to be analysed. It may be that one character is static, while another changes. For the static one, a semantic analysis would be more appropriate: the reverse being true when change is featured. If you do use just one table, this entails that you will only feature one pair of contraries (those named in the top right of the table; this is, in fact, Fredric Jameson’s case for Hard Times). If you do this, all your analysis must be related to the same underlying square, considering how ‘objects’ and observing positions feature in the text, how some remain of constant value for all observers, while others vary depending on the protagonist, or may even change their nature over time –

BUT ALL RELATIVE TO YOUR INITIAL

SEMANTIC SQUARE!

So, to sum up, the interpretative skill you need to work on is the ability to spot the general case in the particular, and the particular in the general. The following table uses one of Spielberg’s films – so getting hold of a script is important!

Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Steven Spielberg’s film side-steps much of the instability of identity one assumes would be involved in a cyborg early childhood (Spielberg, 2002). Instead, he presents his child-monster as a ‘mecha’ – totally inorganic, already constituted as a paragon, and programmed to evoke a maternal response in those supposedly desperate to express their maternal instincts. Spielberg’s narrative follows the consequences of this child-agent being exiled from the generalised social setting that it was designed for. However, what drives the narrative is the more critical process of ‘imprinting’ in which this general facility is turned into a specific attachment to a particular woman and her family setting. As a result, the robot is no longer capable of the promiscuous initial appeal which is the mark of all other commodities.

The mecha’s experience of commodity fetishism is therefore unique – apparently located at one and the same time outside and within the phantasmagoria of products. And, as with most effective adverts, ‘David’ is himself lured on by a desired state of being, rather than simply wanting to possess a particular product. Martin, the son that David was intended to substitute for, returns home after recovering from a supposedly incurable disease, and a competition between the two ‘sibling’ rivals ensues. Martin tells the mecha that it cannot be loved until it becomes a ‘real’ boy. To achieve this he must find the Blue Fairy – only she has the power to bring about such a radical change of being. But in a later scene David’s existential insecurity is further intensified by a shocking discovery: the industrial scale of his own facture.

In what is, perhaps, the central scene of the film, David’s adventures culminate in an encounter with his apparently identical twin, which by now we understand as another simulacrum. David’s immediate response, after shocked self-recognition, is to ‘kill’ his twin so as to remain the only ‘David’ for whom his mother may eventually show love. But later on in the same scene he meets his designer, Professor Hobby, who confirms that he is part of a production line of Davids.David: ‘I thought I was unique.’Professor Hobby (unperturbed by the ‘murder’ of the other ‘David’ and the presence of its remains): ‘My son was unique. You are the first of a kind.’For Hobby, clearly, the mecha’s demonstration of self-directed action in accordance with self-generated fantasy is a vindication of his product’s unique selling feature: its simulated child-identity:-

In despair, David commits the mecha equivalent of suicide, and if the narrative had ended there, it would have done so on a profoundly radical note. In order to live, David - as emblem for the child-subject of advanced capitalism - ideally should learn nothing. But, in fact, Spielberg uses David’s refusal to accept a compromised identity to return the viewer to a more familiar discourse - a little boy needs love, and his mummy will love him best of all (this is Friedman’s principal theme in your hand-out). In the distant future his mother is reconstituted from DNA extracted from strands of her hair. However, whatever Spielberg intended, a cyborgian perspective on his narrative closure provides insight into a synthesis of meaning that is disturbing. David’s ‘mother’ is reproduced as a clone, capable of loving David alone for the one day of her artificial life. David’s consciousness is supported by machinery, hers by genetics; both are now programmed to enjoy a perfect day.

Can this interpretation be usefully developed using a syntactic analysis? Here’s one way in which this question might be answered. From the script I select two relatively stable and essential contraries.

1. Orga 2. Mecha

3. Not-Mecha 4. Not-Orga

9? and 10?

5. Complex term, Orga + Mecha

cyborg.

Narrator – ‘God’s Eye’

6. Neutral term, Not-Mecha + Not-Orga

‘ultra-Orga’

7. Positive deixis, Orga + Not Mecha

‘ultra-Mecha,

8. Negative deixis, Mecha + Not-Orga

This square, and the associated syntactic analysis, will be discussed in the lecture. In the meantime, consider the following:-

In every case, the synthesis points are, at least initially, the most interesting areas to study, but the point of using a syntactic analysis is to plot change and then interpret this. For instance, review your understanding of the term, ‘cyborg’. In my square it is used to refer to a synthesis of organic and electro-mechanical parts, but Spielberg’s David is an electro-mechanical simulacrum. But where does this leave David? Is he the ‘ultra Mecha’ that Professor Hobby thinks he has created (Mecha + Not Orga), or a direct contradiction: Mecha + Not-Mecha? Perhaps we need different contraries – perhaps real, and simulacral – or another version of living, and dead.

There are related sources of interest in considering position 7, as well as 8, since one begins to map out fields of related meanings – analogies, metaphors, etc. that extend the analysis away from the script, towards possible forms of symbolisation, and your own interpretation. For example, on the face of it, position 7 (Orga + Not Mecha) should stand for those humans who organise and delight in the spectacular destruction of surplus robots. But there are other ways of being ‘ultra’ human: perhaps Professor Hobby as the ‘magician’ who can make these sentient constructions, or David, whose love for his ‘mother’ is absolute (cf. Martin). Hobby, equally, could be placed on the opposite side of the square on account of the ‘living death’ his life has become: the mechanical reproduction of simulated ‘sons.’

But this story has a setting; thoughts about life and not-life may prompt reflection on the flooded world, i.e., the sea as the birth place of all life, and what it becomes - a frozen world – a world engulfed in water no longer ‘life-sustaining.’ Is this the pre-text for a related square using the contraries frozen and un-frozen – understood literally and metaphorically? It may be helpful to see these terms as the start of abstractions and generalisations still framed by the original square’s terms: this is a matter for your judgement in relation to the interpretation that you want to develop. Test out radical substitutions – could Martin temporarily hold position 6, the Neutral Term, that I have suggested for the God’s Eye View – or part of a ‘cyborg’ spectrum? Second point: should Hobby and David be understood as playing out the central contradictions of this square: David as Mecha and not-Mecha; Hobby as Orga and not-Orga?

In terms of a worked example, enough has been said to suggest how you might follow the Orga/Mecha one by yourself. Part of the fascination with this approach is that it makes you think about the analytic terms that you might use. For instance, the central process illustrated in the film is the ‘imprinting’ – the time when the boy-as-commodity becomes my-boy-commodity. There are few possessions in our own technology that trigger such dramatic consequences, but for most of us, a mobile probably comes close. If it is lost we suffer something like the removal of a prosthetic, i.e., our ability to function socially is suddenly dramatically reduced.

So perhaps a square constructed around the notion of imprinting – to use the film’s terminology – will be intriguing; but how will this be set out? The problem here is that we confuse ourselves through a lack of direct terminology.

1. Free? (not-imprinted)

2. Not-Free? (imprinted)

3. Not-Not-Free???

4. Not-Free???

9? and 10?

5. Complex term, Free + Not-Free

?

?

6. Neutral term, Not-Not-Free + Not-Free

7. Positive deixis,

8. Negative deixis,

We will probably make more progress by using the pairing of unity and multiplicity. The syntactic table can plot the change in David and Gigolo Joe, while all other characters are static.

1. unity 2. multiplicity

3. not-multiplicity

4. not-unity

9? and 10?

5. Complex term,

Unity + multiplicity

Manipulative ‘friends’ = Henry, Martin.

6. Neutral term,

not-multiplicity + not-unity

‘Normal’ friendliness = Orgas

7. Positive deixis,

‘ultra unity’ = David after imprinting and Monica

8. Negative deixis,

‘ultra multiplicity’ =

Gigolo Joe