In the Havana of the late 50s, Jim Wormold, a Phastkleaners vacuum cleaners salesman, lives a quaint life. Regularly, he meets with Dr Hasselbacher, a German expatriate, at the Wonder Bar, drinking Daiquiries. His daughter Milly is courted by Captain Segura, the chief of police in Havana. Segura is a dangerous man, feared and hated among the local population for his arbitrary abuse of power.
When Mr Hawthorne arrives in Cuba in order to recruit an agent, he sets his eyes on Wormold. With the inconspicuous cover of a tradesman, he seems a perfectly suitable candidate for the job. Wormold, unconcerned by politics or secrets, understands the chance to better his finances and so agrees to work for the British Secret Service. His first task then is to recruit more agents. Despite his serious attempts, he fails at this. Upon Dr Hasselbacher's recommendation, Wormold starts to invent sub-agents as well as their reports. The MI6 pays well for his fictional work.
by Carl Pierer
Myths, according to Barthes, follow a complex structure. There are two levels to be distinguished: The linguistic from the mythological one. On the linguistic level, we have Saussurean signs. The myth is a second order sign, made up of a Saussurean or linguistic sign as its signifier and a concept as its signified. To distinguish the sign as such from its use in the myth, Barthes introduces the two terms meaning and form. Meaning picks out the sign as an independent entity (3. Sign). When this sign or meaning is used as a signifier in the myth, it is called form (I. SIGNIFIER).
The important contrast is that meaning is rich, while form is impoverished. Meaning, according to Barthes, has a history. Form then empties meaning of its history and content, in order to use it as a signifier. The concept here, then, is the mythological signified (II. SIGNIFIED). The correlation of form and concept is called signification or myth (III SIGN).