FROM PERIL TO POWER: A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF JESSIE RAN MARSHALL’S WOMEN IN PERIL

Abstract

This MPhil thesis presents a descriptive, qualitative structural analysis of Jessie Ren Marshall’s short story collection Women! In! Peril! (2024) using Roland Barthes’ five-code model from S/Z (1970). While critical reception has addressed the collection’s thematic range and stylistic features, limited research has examined the formal narrative mechanisms that generate textual complexity within the stories. This study addresses that gap by investigating how meaning is produced through the systematic organization of narrative codes at the microstructural level.The research employs a structural-semiotic framework grounded in Barthes’ theory of textual plurality. Barthes’ five codes — Hermeneutic Code (enigmas), Proairetic Code (action sequences), Semantic Code (connotations), Symbolic Code (binary oppositions), and Cultural Code (intertextual references) — are used as analytical tools to decode narrative structure. The methodology is descriptive and qualitative, involving close textual analysis of a purposive sample of three stories from the collection. Each story is segmented into _lexias_, minimal units of reading, to identify the occurrence, distribution, and interaction of codes within the text.The study is guided by three objectives: (1) to describe how the Hermeneutic and Proairetic codes regulate narrative progression and suspense; (2) to examine how the Semantic and Symbolic codes generate polysemy and construct thematic architecture; and (3) to analyze how the Cultural Code activates intertextual and socio-cultural references within the narrative. Findings reveal high code density and complex interaction within compact narrative units. Enigmas operate at the level of discourse rather than plot; action sequences function as structural units that advance narrative movement; semantic layering produces multiple connotative fields; symbolic structures remain in sustained tension; and cultural references function to position the text within larger discursive networks.The analysis demonstrates that Women! In! Peril! constitutes a “writerly” text in which meaning emerges from the interplay of codes rather than from linear narration. The study contributes to structuralist narratology and textual analysis by providing a systematic application of Barthes’ five-code model to contemporary short fiction and by offering a replicable descriptive method for code-based analysis of lexias. It shows that narrative complexity in Marshall’s work is a product of structural organization and semiotic layering at the level of textual units.Keywords: Jessie Ren Marshall; Women! In! Peril!; Roland Barthes; five codes; structuralist narratology; semiotics; descriptive analysis; qualitative research; lexia; writerly text; short story