Page "Death of the Author" Paragraph 6

Barthes notes that the traditional critical approach to literature raises a thorny problem: how can we detect precisely what the writer intended?

His answer is that we cannot.

He introduces this notion in the epigraph to the essay, taken from Honoré de Balzac's story Sarrasine in which a male protagonist mistakes a castrato for a woman and falls in love with him.

When, in the passage, the character dotes over his perceived womanliness, Barthes challenges his own readers to determine who is speaking, and about what.

" Is it Balzac the author professing ' literary ' ideas on femininity?

Is it universal wisdom?

Romantic psychology?

… We can never know.

" Writing, " the destruction of every voice ," defies adherence to a single interpretation or perspective.

( Barthes returned to Sarrasine in his book S / Z, where he gave the story a rigorous close reading.