The title of “The Death of the Author” has been interpreted in many ways by Roland Barthes within his own piece. He analyzes the different ways in which an author can die within their work, or rather never exist at all. His opposition to these methods calls attention to certain authors such as Balzac, Mallarme, and others, calling them out for their flaws, and yet never focusing on his own. As his report lengthens, he becomes less concerned with the writer and their weaknesses and focuses more on the reader and that reader’s rights. 

 The first interpretation he introduces opens the door through which the reader can view as they may and decide whether they might agree with his piece or not. Barthes writes “..all writing is itself this special voice, consisting of several indiscernible voices… to which we cannot assign a specific origin.”(Barthes, pg 2) It is the thought that even if we are to write our own thoughts and ideas down on paper, we are technically not the true author, as all of our ideas are influenced by the things we have experienced. We are merely rewriting what we have previously read, so the title of an author is not a title to claim because it does not exist. No thought or idea is original, only an agreeance or an opposition to previous statements. Thus, a modern view is presented and kills the original notion to be an “author”. 

Another point made by Barthes is that a major flaw in modern literature is the focus on the author, “The image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions.” (Barthes, pg 3) He is saying that the literature is not being focused on as much, it’s all directed at the personal life of the author. The job of the author is to create something into which a reader can solely look at and interpret  for themselves, but when that attention is pointed at the being who wrote it, the author has failed to remain separate from their work. 

Along the lines of interpretation, Barthes makes it known that when given a piece of literature, the reader is left to understand it how they choose, even if it has nothing to do with the author’s intended explanation. “To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause...once the Author is discovered, the text is "explained:' the critic has conquered.” The author to write that piece is sending it out into the world to be explored, not to be looked at with instructions. With so many ways to view just one piece, the consequences of such are that the author becomes an insignificant figure, and cannot force anyone what to see or not to see in that piece of writing. Barthes claims that the initial critic should be the author, and similar to that criticism, the author should also be overthrown. 

There are cases, however, that show some authors trying to be too significant. Barthes opinion is as follows: “Linguistically, the author is never anything more than the man who writes, just as I is no more than the man who says I.”(Barthes, pg 3) According to Barthes, no matter what is being written, there should be a formal approach to said writing. The author’s only job is to state the facts, thus throwing in an “I..” statement makes the author look as though he is trying to force his beliefs on the audience. Language, as a whole, should not be partial to a certain person, but rather only know a subject, for which that author is not allowed to be.

There is, of course, the ironic definition of the title, which is that the author never dies at all, and becomes immortal from the moment he creates something. “The modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing…” (Barthes, pg 3) meaning that even if the physical author is to pass away, he is constantly living through his writings; He is frozen in time as are his oeuvres.  

He points out the literal, metaphorical, and ironic meaning of the title, and yet maintains that they are all extremely relevant today as much as they were since writing has begun, all the while transitioning to his debate between the authors and those who interpret. These transitions between the focus on the writer and the focus on the reader are slow, but add a change in tone. At first, Barthes is angry at these multiple authors for being pointless and unnecessary in their creations, but shifts to his worry for how that affects the reader. He ends with an ultimatum, “The birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author.”  
