Toy analysis essay

Playing is important to children; it is the way they practice and prepare to grow up. Toys are the tools children use in play, they can be a high tech purchase or they may be as simple as a kitchen pot, pan lid or paper sack puppets.

Barthes argues that toys offer too much direction to children in their play and they do not allow children to indulge in their own imagination. Here we shall analyze the element of language of the essay ‘Toys” by Roland Barthes in the light of his own theory of language. In the essay Toys, Barthes uses the concept of language as a semiotic.

You are welcome to refer to class readings or to incorporate other outside sources, in which case you should cite them appropriately in your essay; but you are not required to use outside sources. Your paper should be 3-4 pages double-spaced with 1 inch margins.

Think back over your childhood and identify a certain game or toy (for the purposes of this paper, avoid sports, though games like tag or hide and seek are okay) that you remember particularly well. It is important to clearly describe and explain the game or toy you are writing about, so take care to do this.