When reading a text, the author’s intention is for the reader to be able to interpret it how the author did. The word choice chosen by the author encompasses how the reader understands the way the content is presented. The way that something is described or presented helps to identify the message the author is using to influence the reader. Word choice has influenced various different literature creating many opinions on the text. By looking at Roland Barthes’ emphasis on context and his persuasive word choice, one can understand how his style of writing influences readers. Most readers don’t see the influence of the writing style, which is important because word choice has an impact on how the reader understands content. 

Throughout The Death of the Author it is apparent how the word choice, or better known as “logical literature” affects how the reader understands the text. The logical literature in this essay is meant to convince or persuade the intended audience. In other essays, logical literature is utilized as a transition to connect the points. Barthes believes that the impact of the work as “the explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it…, the voice of a single person, the author confiding in us” (Barthes 13). The impact of logical literature is based on how the author is confiding in his readers to understand his  meaning and interpretation of the text. The logical literature helps understand the text by creating an idea that leaves it up to the reader’s interpretation.

The author has a persuasive connection to the reader because he based the voice off of himself. The voice makes the reader believe in the author's point of view based on their experiences with “the image of literature to be found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions” (Barthes 13). The powerful word choice of “tyrannically” makes the author appear to be forcing the words down the reader’s throat, not allowing for their own interpretation. The forceful words affect the emotion of the reader, giving off a negative connotation while trying to persuade the readers opinion about the text. The voice and emotional connection effect the reader immensely. Ensuring that the reader understands the voice of the text before connecting emotionally is key because the reader could be misinterpreting the text; which Barthes argues is what reading is all about. He wants the reader to feel like he or she can have his or her own thoughts. However, having that information of the background of an author doesn't allow that to happen since interpreting the reading through the authors lens. 

The context of the text supports the language which than affects the reader’s understanding of the text. The context is a valuable tool noted because it is there to clarify and show how “the language knows a ‘subject’; not a ‘person’, and this subject, empty outside of the very enunciation which defines it, suffices to make language ‘hold together’, suffices, that is to say, to exhaust it” (Barthes 14).  Determining the subject is important when trying to understand a text to be able to understand what the reading is about. The story is nourished by the reaction to what is being said, the author feels accomplished once the reader is able to connect emotionally to the text. The word “diminishing”, strengthens the specific focus how the modern text can be transformed and can create emotions for the reader, “the removal of the author ‘distancing’, the author diminishing like a figurine at the far end of the literary stage” (Barthes 14). The word choice affects the emotion of the reader, the word “diminishing” is used to persuade the reader to agree with the authors point. The emotions created by the text can change how the reader sees or feels, ultimately the opinion on the book and characters can change because of the emotional attachment. The reader’s emotional attachment is because of the word choice and the persuasive language used in the word choice.  

The word choice Barthes uses creates the emphasis on being able to understand the text. Understanding the text and being able to break it down and let the reader build it back up in the best way that they see it is very important. The way to understand the text according to Barthes is,  “We shall never know, for the good reason that writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin” (12). It is very important that the readers build the text back up the way they see it so they can use different tools to better understand the text. When Barthes uses the language, leaving words open for interpretation, intending the reader to arrive at their own opinion, yet he creates an opinion on the use of his language. When the reader is reflecting on the text, though Barthes says he wants the readers to have their own thoughts, he contradicts this by the language he uses. 

The shift from the author having all the say and making the audience think a certain way about the text, to being able to think freely and not know the author or note what happened in their life to make them write a certain way is essential for the interpretation of the text. The interpretation of the text needs to be a happy medium between authors viewpoints and readers personal connection for the full understanding of the text. The author’s control will remain powerful, leaving the reader to have this presumable thought, even though some try to loosen it, per say, and use language that leave the reader to think freely “it is language which speaks, not the author; to write is, through a prerequisite impersonality” (Barthes 13).  The transformations of the emotional connection are what has to be said to read it from the author’s perspective (how the author wants the reader to see it), to the reader’s perspective. Barthes speaks on how the reader needs to see the writing as “the neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing” (12). The subject, meaning the author, needs to slip away and let the reader make their own way around the book and story line. 

 The readers understand how the language, context, and emotion are all connected to each other and emphasizes how Barthes interprets authors and how readers interpret the text. Barthes writes in a way of contradiction, as previously discussed, though he talks about in his content that you should be able to have a free opinion, he creates bias by his word choice, language and context. Knowing an author’s style of writing, can provide the reader with tools on how to limit the bias that could influence the reading. Contradicting content in writing styles affects the emotional connection that the reader has to the text.  By looking at Roland Barthes use of context and persuasive word choice, one can understand how it influences readers, which most readers don’t see; this is important because word choice has an impact on how the reader understands content. 

 