indices

is, as a type of function, a group of details which can be collected together and help to produce a kind of meaning that is not essentially chronological; they can contribute, for example, to what we would call ‘character’. These functions, such as noting the color of a character’s hair, or the fact that it suddenly begins to rain when a particular character enters the street,

Contrasted to distributive functions come another type which Barthes calls indices: these are details which can be collected together and help to produce a kind of meaning that is not essentially chronological; they can contribute, for example, to what we would call ‘character’. These functions, such as noting the colour of a character’s hair, or the fact that it suddenly begins to rain when a particular character enters the street, are only understandable by moving to the next level of Actions. Indices are thus integrated at a higher level. For example, what we call the ‘character’ in a narrative (‘character’ may be describable through one word, such as ‘evil’ or ‘dangerous’ or ‘saintly’ or ‘virginal’) is never named directly but usually is indexed through a host of functional details: the clothes they wear, the manner in which they talk, walk, eat their dinner, treat their pets or their parents and so on. Ian Fleming’s famous secret agent, James Bond (Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger is Barthes’s example in this essay), for example, is surrounded by a host of such indices, none of which can be understood unless we integrate them into larger groupings on the level of Actions.

indices, n.Definitions

indices