‘Death of the Author’

Author: Roland Barthes

Type: Critical Essays

Approach: Reader-Response Theory(Simplified)

By - Anil S Awad

It is the most famous, controversial and even notorious essay by Roland Barthes, publish in the year 1968…in which he makes the famous quote: ‘…the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author.’

Previously author is posited at the center of the work. Author is Omnipotent (all knowing) God…he writes the text…interprets the meaning…owns the text…nourishes the work of the art as father nourishes a child…he is behind the book…so only he knows the ultimate truth…he owns the truth about the text and what/why/how/where he quoted. This claim is challenged by Barthes in this essay. How…? 

As per structuralism, meaning cannot be understood in isolation…it must be understood in relation with other things…like…if we want to understand chair…we must know table, bed, furniture etc etc. Meaning is not something in the object itself but assigned to the object by outside…chair never says ‘I am a chair.’…we assign it as a chair externally and by differing it from table, bed, sofa-set etc. So the meaning is relative…one object’s meaning is dependent upon other object and other object’s to another object…and so on. It is relative…so...there is no fix pole or landmark or milestone to know the truth…we use language (linguistics) to denote these objects and nothing more…so there is language (linguistics) and no ultimate truth…it leads to post-structuralism…means destroying the structure…the structure, by using it we try to understand the meaning of any objects…it is also applicable to the text…structuralism associate the work of the art with author and post-structuralism assigns it to the readers who analyzes/interprets/destroys the meaning as per his wish. As soon as the fact is narrated by the author through his text…it loses its origini and voice and the author enters into his own death. As above quoted the author is ‘behind’ the book…as the book is printed…came into the market…purchased by the reader…and started to read by him…the death of the author takes place and it gives birth to the reader. There are many readers…going to read the text…they will try to understand the text from their view-point…at that time the author is not there to make the reader understand the meaning…again the meaning is linguistic and relative…so where is the truth? And where is the author…he is no more…he is dead…there is only the reader…and here Barthes makes his famous quote… ‘…the birth of the reader is always at the cost of the death of the author.’

For example – Suppose you have given a book of an unknown/anonymous author…the author whom you never know…you start to read the book and analyze it from your point of view…the author is invisible…as a reader you have your (new) interpretations…which may/may not be as per the interpretation of the author…because he is invisible to you…he is dead for you and you, the reader takes birth to interpret his work as per  his/her wish…

Take the known example…Shakespeare used the soliloquy ‘to be or not to be that is the question’…nobody knows the true purpose…but everyone tried to analyze it from his/her viewpoint…some says that there is no specific intention in writing these lines and they simply appears in the play…some says that it is related to the great dilemma of human mind…some associates it with ‘philosophy of life’…like.. ‘to live or not to live that is the question’…some analyze it from ‘situational view-point’ – Claudius (the villain) was praying there, Hamlet had a chance to kill him, but if Claudius is killed while praying to God, he will go to the Heaven and not to Hell for his sin…so… ‘to kill Claudius or leave him alive, that is the question’. We even find some Shakespearean scholars who completed their Ph. D. or say eve Post-Doctoral research on the single line : ‘to be or not to be that is the question.’ Does Shakespeare mean to do anything about it? Then who is doing it? The reader is doing it…where is the author…he is no more…he is dead…with the birth of the reader…the author dies.

Thanks.

Anil S Awad

English Net Consultant

anilawad123@gmail.com

9922113364/9423403368

(Inconveniences related to syntax, grammar, punctuation etc. are regretted.)

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(Inconveniences related to syntax, grammar and punctuation are regretted.)