Bridget Post 4: Am I, too, Dead??

This week’s discussion on Barthes’ The Death of the Author, was one that I found to be really interesting yet questionable. In class, during Band 3’s presentation, all the talk of the author having to be separated from the text caused me to pose the question of how are we supposed to truly know what Barthes meant in his writings if we are supposed treat the text as if it’s author is dead? I mean, how are we truly supposed to know that the way we are interpreting the text is the right way, or even the way he wanted it?

Perhaps, the key to understanding this section is to think of it in terms of the author not being able to own the text once he or she has produced it. I think I sort of tackled this in a previous blog when I was discussing how I even though I am sitting here documenting my thoughts on a topic as I type these words, once I press the post button, I no longer exist in relation to it. Because of the context of this writing, most people who read this are going to have no clue who I am, what I believe, or even what kind of experiences I’ve had to make me view the world the way I do. So, in this case, I would truly be dead to the reader because they would have no reason to associate me as the author, and my life experiences, with the text.

I completely agreed with and understood where Barthes’ was coming from when Elena explained the theory of surrealism and how a single text does not truly belong to the person who wrote it because it is influenced by the ideas of many, similar to how many people are involved in the production of a film. However, if the author is not able to lay claim to a text because of that reason, why even put a name on a text at all? Why not attribute every text to entire societies, rather than one person? Perhaps the answer to that last question is because people obviously want recognition for their work. Even though their theories, ideas, and views of the world may be based on ideas stemming from the society around them, in some cases it still was that one person who chose to take the time to document it. Therefore, now that I think about it, I think it is appropriate to say that the author is dead because death symbolizes something that was once there has been completely removed, never to return again. This is essentially what the author is to the text, an entity that was once there, living, breathing with the text as he or she created it, but then died when the text was released in to the world and became an entity of its own.