An Analysis of Sheikh Sanaan’s Story Based on Roland Barthes’s Theory of Codes

“Sheikh Sanaan’s” story is one of the most beautiful stories of the Conference of the Birds (Mantiq-ul-Tayr) of Attar of Nishapur. An appeal for this story provides a necessary background for reading it again from the perspective of structuralism. Presenting evidence from the story of Sheikh Sanaan, this paper considers the structure of the story from the perspective of Roland Barthes’s five codes. These codes include: Hermeneutic or enigmatic codes, proairetic codes, symbolic codes, root meaning codes, and cultural codes. The purpose of the research is to analyze the story of Sheik Sanaan in the form of codes indicating how to analyze different types of literary texts using accurate rules and principles.