Signifiers and Signified: The Apple

The apple has for many years been associated with sin and the fall of man and original sin. Therefore the apple is a signifier as it is the image that carries the signified denotes that apples were an evil temptation. This is an arbitrary link between apples and evil. There is no relation between an apple and evil, the signifier is a just image or object that has been related to evil by convention. That is a first order semiological chain, because it relate to a set of values or ideas, it then becomes a second order semiological chain. The apple as denoted as an evil temptation then becomes a connotation of the evil temptation leading to the fall of man, as it links with the myth or social construct of the Adam and Eve story.