Death of The Author- Roland Barthes | Essay |  Theme | English Notes | M.A English

Death of the author (1967) is an essay by French literary critic Roland Barthes. He explored social theory, anthropology, and semiotics. His work left an impression on the intellectual movement of structuralism and poststructuralism.  His famous works include:

• Mythologies
• Critical Essays
• The Fashion System
• A Lover's Discourse
• Incidents

Death of the author

Roland Barthes says in his essay The Death of the Author, 

The birth of The Reader must be at the cost of the death of the author.

There can be no actual level of independent thinking achieved by The Reader if their thoughts are dictated by the author's opinion and biases. For this reason, there needs to be a distance between the author and those who read the work.

In this essay, Barthes criticizes the reader’s tendency to consider aspects of the author’s identity-his political views, historical context,  religion, ethnicity, psychology, or other biographical or personal attributes to distill meaning from his work.  For Barthes, this is a teddy method of reading and is a careless and lazy way.

 To give a text to an author, and assign a single corresponding interpretation to it is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with Final signified and to close the writing.

Readers must separate a literary work from its creator in order to liberate it from interpretive tyranny. Each piece of writing contains multiple layers and meanings. The essential meaning of a work depends on the impressions of The Reader, rather than the “passion” or “taste” of the writer.

Barthes is not describing the literal, physical death of an author. The death of the author simply means that the reader takes charge of producing meaning. The text does not belong to anyone. Text is simply there waiting for someone to make meaning. This idea acknowledges the fluid function of textuality and it is also a rebellious doctrine because it is inherently a challenge to authority.

Barthes makes two main points as to why the death of the author is an inevitable and beneficial occurrence.

First Point | Death of the Author

He states that the author is merely a way through which a story is told. He neither created the story nor from it. The author is merely retelling the story that has already been told many times.

A text’s unity lies not in its origin, or its creator, but in its destination, or its audience.

Barthes' argument against original thought is very suggestive. Most modern fairy tales are merely an adoption of classic fairy tales. Besides fairy tales, most fiction stories follow the same pattern with a beginning problem, a training period, a setback for the hero, overcoming the obstacle, the conflict, and finally resolution. There are no original thoughts, just old thoughts combined in different patterns or adjusted to fit the current society.

Music, fashion, and movies are an example of the never-ending recycling of ideas. it is inevitable that the old style will be used to “inspire” new ones. There are no society in which new ideas are used, merely old ideas being reused.

Second Point | Death of the author

Barthes's second point is that if the reader read the work through the author's eyes then they would gain no benefit from the reading. By associating the author with the text, the text is automatically Limited. Instead of drawing their own meaning from the text and using their own experience, the reader focuses on understanding the author's opinion and they agree with the author and don't focus on their own thoughts and opinions of the piece.

The Reader and the text are the two most essential elements in the interpretation of a literary piece. When The Reader is able to come to a written work with no bias, proper interpretation takes place.

For example, so much is known about Edgar Allan Poe's use of addictive drugs. When the Reader looks at his material, he brings a muddled approach to Poe's stories and poems. Poe was a brilliant man who had many struggles in his life. Think about the impact of drugs or alcohol.

Is it possible to write elegant and fascinating stories under their influence of them?

Poe suffered from depression, financial problems, family problems, and addiction problems. Therefore the reader’s interpretation will be clouded.

Barthes sees the authors in a different light. For Barthes, the author is not the originator of the text’s meaning. Barthes replaces the word author with scripture. The scriptor does not precede the text as an all-powerful mother/God-creator would. The scriptor is simultaneous with the text as if he was a character himself. The scriptor is like a chemist who takes chemicals and mixes them together. Thus the result is the mixture. Then he shows what he’s mixed to the readers. The points and meanings or not originate from the author(scriptor). The Reader, the destination is when the freedom of text’s meaning is manifested. The Reader always draws the meaning.

The limiting of the meaning would be like saying as if the author were a parent, the text his child, and the author spent his entire life being the only influence on the text/child, therefore making it impossible for the child to grow or interact with others(readers).

But for the Barthes, the scriptor is not like a parent and the text is not like a child. The child is the reader. “The birth of The Reader must come at the death of the author.” In a twisted but logical sense, the reader gives birth to a text by reading it. The reader librates it by not limiting to it some original meaning.

Conclusion

To sum up, the originality of the work comes from the reader's own experience. His reading and attempts to understand the meaning bring new value to literature. The Reader can interject his own experience and knowledge. Then The Reader does not have to worry about the opinion or intent of the author. Without the limitation of the author, the text can have many interpretations.

Barthes bases his entire principle on this idea claiming that it is only the status of The Reader, not the author that should be elevated.

“This is the part of the general philosophy that a reader or student is not some passive vessel waiting to be programmed but an active participant in the construction of meaning and history."

His final conclusion states: “The birth of The Reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author." 

Thank You

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