Patrizia Magli shows how value is not limited to a taxonomic function or to an individual thymic projection, but can take shape as an axiological system within a text. Axiology is the deep value-structure that supports the narrative: a mode of organizing content derived from the investment of the thymic category into a semantic category.
Everything begins with a taxonomy, that is, a classificatory structure based on semantic oppositions organized in logical squares: for instance, /white/ vs. /black/, or /life/ vs. /death/. Taxonomy in itself is neutral: it entails no evaluation. But the moment the taxonomic poles are invested with the thymic markings of euphoria and dysphoria, an axiological system emerges.
Axiology is therefore a valorized taxonomy. In many Western cultures, white is associated with positive values such as “purity” or “light”, while black is linked to mourning and darkness. But this attribution is not universal: in different cultures or historical periods, the associations may be reversed. White, for example, is the color of mourning in certain societies. The same applies within texts, where chromatic, moral, or ideological values can be redefined according to the logic of the narrative world.
Every text is an axiological microcosm. It may articulate its values in accordance with, or in opposition to, the dominant values of the cultural context. At times, the axiological system staged in the text is shared by the characters and by the represented community. At other times, instead, the narrative subject adopts a divergent stance, giving rise to a personal value-system.
When axiology is internalized and orients the subject’s behavior, we speak of ideology. In this sense, Greimas understands ideology not as an abstract doctrine but as a syntagmatic path that guides the subject’s action within the narrative. Ideology is not only a paradigmatic structure but also a narrative direction: it is a quest for value, a dynamic articulation of passages from one pole to another.
Magli analyzes the example of The Two Friends by Maupassant. At the beginning of the story, during the Prussian siege of Paris, the city is in a state of /non-life/, and even nature appears emptied. In this condition, two men remember the times when they used to fish together: a call to the /life/ they have lost. When they decide to take up that activity again, they accept the risk of death in order to recover a moment of freedom and normality. Once discovered, they face a choice: collaborate with the enemy and save themselves (/dishonor/, /obedience/), or die in order to defend a principle (/honor/, /freedom/).
The story thus reveals a value-movement traversing the logical square:
/life/ → /non-life/ → /death/ → /non-death/ → /life/
This axiological transformation shows that the two characters attain a higher form of life—one of heroism and moral sense—through death.
The axiology of the text is therefore characterized dynamically: not only as a stable system but as a field of forces crossed by subjects, choices, tensions. Ideology is, in this sense, the narrative articulation of a subjective position in relation to a value-system.
Bibliographic reference: Patrizia Magli, Semiotica. Teoria, metodo, analisi, Marsilio, 2004.