To use a classical example cited by Roland Barthes - a picture of a black
> soldier saluting the French flag on the front cover of a French magazine -
> the picture itself signifies two different levels of meaning - the literal
> (i.e. person with specific characteristics in a specific situation0 and
> "mythological" as Barthes calls it (i.e. the French empire and its
> connotations, either good or bad.)
>
I may not know much, but I do recall that the picture was of a young schoolboy, and not of a "soldier" in any sense that most of us might recognize.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."