Roland Barthes, in The Death of the Author, states that article is up to the individual viewer's interpretation. The removal of the author from the text gives the reader the opportunity to become its new "owner" [Barthes, page 3]. Throughout the article Barthes mentions other authors and the way they write, but the main point he is trying to express is that every one of these authors is disconnected from their work. In a sense, they have died. When Roland Barthes says "the death of the author" he means the literary death, the disconnect between the text and the person who wrote it. The authors words mean nothing to the reader because they are unaware of the significance that the text holds. Because the reader is unaware of what the authors experience was that sparked their writing, only the reader can find any meaning because the author's existence is only through the text. Roland Barthes uses imagery, metaphors, and word choice throughout the text to describe the death of the author.

 In the first line of the text, Barthes mentions Sarrasine and how Balzac described a castrato singer who was pretending to be a woman. He uses a quote to expresses the woman's characteristics in a romantic and beautiful way. Barthes used this quote to ask us who the speaker was, and all of the possible people, who it could have been. Not knowing what the purpose of the text is when reading a text can alter the way you interpret it. There really is no other meaning than what the reader infers. The text is open to everyone's opinions and interpretations and that makes the author's personal significance almost non-existent. Barthes continues to bring up other authors throughout the article, mentioning their different writing styles. He mentions Mallarme and how he was the first to see that if he substituted language for the person who would read it, then they would experience it in their own way. "It is the language which speaks, not the author; to write is, through a prerequisite impersonality, to reach that point where only language acts, 'performs,' and not 'me'." [Barthes, page. 3] 

The birth of the text happens at the same moment as the death of the author. The birth of the text happens when the viewer finds a connection with the text, which causes the author's death. The author's words and their intended meaning are no longer significant to the viewer because the viewer has found their own significance. An author dies when his work is complete. He uses imagery to portray this death. As soon as the words are put onto paper, the author is separated from his writing. They are no longer a part of him; in a way he is similar to the castrato singer, missing an essential part of himself. The singer and the author have something in common, they both lost a part of themselves in order to do what they loved., i.e, to sing and to write.

Barthes uses metaphors as he compares an author and his work to a father and a child, the father has watched/helped his child grow, and once that child is finally grown up, the father takes a step back and the child begins to live their life independently, like the text does once it is published. Although the book came from the author like the child came from the father, they are no longer connected hand in hand. The world will judge both the book and the son on their mistakes, but Barthes mentions that it is the text that should be judged not the person who made it.

Barthes' word choice is very metaphorical at times, especially when he describes a text as a figure that goes through many different journeys; the first is to be thought of by the creator. Barthes believes that the creator of the work is not the owner, the owner is many people who will read the text and find a connection with it. The next step of the text's journey is when it is written down and detached from its creator. The third step of the journey is when it is read by a new person and they become the new owner, marking its final destination. "A text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination" perfectly describes the text's journey. It is not about where it came from or where it has been; the only part that truly matters are where it ends and what it's impact was on your life. 

Barthes continued to say that the removal of the author happens because the text speaks for itself and the author's story has nothing to do with the readers. "The removal of the Author is not merely an historical fact or an act of writing; it utterly transforms the modern text (or which is the same thing  the text is henceforth made and read in such a way that at all its levels the author is absent)."  [Barthes. page 4]

Barthes' article portrays the disconnect between the author and his text. The meaning of the text is gone when the author puts the words onto paper. The author is separated from the text so that the readers can find a connection with it, resulting in the death of the author. Barthes used literary elements throughout his article to help explain this death in a fuller and artistic way.

