The semiotic method produces an entirely different interpretation of the snake in the department store. An implicit meaning is found by examining the contrasts between signifiers. It is not hidden within the psyche, but rather represents a tacit social understanding. The story loses its sexual tilt and becomes a cultural interpretation. These create a distinct system of opposition.
Eastern culture is approached through the disregard of the network of social rules.
A sign prohibits touching the rugs, but in order to experience the 'other,' the woman oversteps the bounds of propriety. Without this system of order, in her exploration of the chaotic unknown, the woman dies. Western culture is familiar to her, it is the understood, rational, ordered world. A sign of prohibition constructs a system of order, a particular social nomos. Moreover, that order equals life.