The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes

In the essay, The Death of the Author, Barthes proceeds a sort of post structuralist or deconstructive view of the author. He takes different stand through which he announces the metaphoric death of the author. It also declares the death of structuralism.

Here, Barthes questions the historical issue regarding the place of author in the text. He argues that when the author writes the text, his voice is no more dominant in it. How reader interprets the text is more important. Author is nothing other than translator and imitator and nothing is original for him. He simply imitates the materials that were already used.

Writing is the destruction of own voice or erasing of the ' self'. As the writing begins, the author starts entering in to his own death. It is not the author who speaks in the text but it is the language that does so. Linguistically, author is nothing; hence it is language that functions. As soon as the writer starts writing, he is dead because when he writes he has no control over the text but it depends on the interpretation of readers. Even though writer begins to write it is not original. Text is fabric of quotations from thousands of cultural sources. Author uses language to put it in infinite meanings. He allows the readers to interpret the text. As a result, the reader produces multiple meanings. So, every text is repetition of repetition.

Writing is not an 'expression' but a ' scription'. The birth of reader must be required by the death of author. In conclusion, no writer is original: every text is photocopy. All writers take help of language that is already there in environment. Expressionist and universalist type of author is dead and it is the scriptor who occupies their place. Critics/ readers and writers/ novelists share commonalities as they are working on the same language. Language disclaims any authorial presence. Since the world has innumerable meanings, this signals to the possibility of multiple meaning of a text and thus every reading is misreading. So, here, Barthes contrasts with Saussure and declares to be a deconstructionist. Saussure says there is signifier, which has a signified but Barthes rejects the possibility of a signified or singular meaning.

To sum up, a writer is nothing because he borrows everything from his cultural dictionary. A writer is one who just holds the language and has no authority over the text and meaning. The traditional author who thought himself authority to hold meaning is dead. In this sense, we can claim that' reader- response' theory is based on the ground of the notion of the death of the author. It encourages readers for interpreting any text the way he likes.