Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions.

In Barthes's "The Death of the Author" we learn the text exists without the author. “Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where out subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing” (Barry, 185). By this, Barthes explains that writing has no meaning, and the reader may associate the author to the text, trying to find a definite meaning with restrictions and boundaries.


Overall, the text has no one defined meaning or explanation. However, when the reader focuses on the author of the text, we add meaning behind writing that does not exist. Certain experiences of the author, such as their life history or the time period the text was written alters the affect of the text. “The image of literature to be found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions while criticism still consists for the most part in saying that Baudelaire’s work is the failure of Baudelaire the man…” With this, the reader must look at the impact of the text, not the impact of the author on the text. The author or scripter has the purpose of scripting the text that is all.

Dr. Crazy, a fellow blogger brings up interesting points on this topic. “But, historically, anonymity has been about effacing one's identity even as one writes. Now, Virginia Woolf famously suggests in A Room of One's Own that "Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was a woman" (49). Maybe this is the place where the problem with distinguishing between anonymity and pseudonymity begins, as in making this claim; Woolf assigns an identity to the anonymous writer.”


With that being said, Virginia Woolf is using the assumptions she has created about the author to decide the poems are written by a woman. She is identifying the text with the idea that the author was female, altering the outcome of her experience of the text.

"But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think. "
-Lord Byron

You Probably Think This Post is About You

“There is not narcissism and non-narcissism. There are narcissisms that are more or less comprehensive, generous, open, extended. What is called non-narcissism is in general but the economy of a much more welcoming and hospitable narcissism. One that is much more open to the experience of the Other as Other. I believe that without a movement of narcissistic reappropriation, the relation to the Other would be absolutely destroyed, it would be destroyed in advance. The relation to the Other, even if it remains asymmetrical, open, without possible reappropriation, must trace a movement of reappropriation in the image of one's self for love to be possible. Love is narcissistic.” -Derrida


Watching the documentary about Derrida, he brings up interesting concepts above love. According to Derrida, love is narcissistic. Any interesting thought, yes?


Derrida goes on to explain love as something almost impossible to describe and posts the question if we love someone for who they are, or what they are. To love someone for what they are, you love the certain qualities they possess, which can mean you do not love the “whole” person, just some of what makes them up. To love someone for who they are can be considered different; as you love the entire and actual individuality of the person. In which it can be said that when love has ended, we had only loved the certain qualities of the person, not the person as a whole. This makes it possible to end such a relationship when only the qualities where liked because life can continue on without those, and can be found within someone else.

But how is this narcissistic? In a relationship full of love don’t we care unconditionally for the other person, making sure we can continue to make them happy? Don’t we go out of our way to do whatever it takes to make sure we never lose this love? But why are we doing all of this? For our own benefit. Yes, we go above and beyond to show how much we love our person, but for their sake or ours? Ours. We only are driven to act this way for our own selfish reasons. We want this love to never die, we want our lover to be happy, but only so the love we want can continue on. We may seem to be acting selfless in the name of love, but we are actually narcissistic, caring so much about what we want that we go to many lengths to secure what we want, in this case love.

We can also focus on "love at first sight". What is the basis behind or feelings towards this person? Strictly the way they look. We tell ourselves we are truly deeply in love and this person is amazing, yet the only quality we have experienced about this person is their physical appearance.

And if we dig deeper and find someone with a connection strong enough to call love, why are we in 'love'? We are in love because this person possesses qualities we like, that we want, that we are looking for. This has nothing to do with the other person. We are not falling in love with qualities we never knew existed, we are creating an ideal person in our minds, and falling in love with others we feel fit the mold.

This brings up the question, do we only ever fall in love with ourselves?

The Value of the Word

"The bond between the signifier and the signified is radically arbitrary"

-Ferdinand de Saussure

What can we make of this?
To start off, we can identify the signifier verses the signified. The signifier, being the image or sound we see or hear, and the signified being the idea or concept behind the image or sound we see or hear. You cannot have one without the other; however there is no natural relationship between the two.

In a structuralism theory, we recognize the word spoon only because we know what not a spoon is. We know a fork and knife are not spoons, so therefore a spoon must be a spoon because it is not a fork or knife. However, this language of signs is arbitrary. Why a fork and knife? Why not a straw? Anything you can think of that is not a spoon then helps you to identify a spoon, forming no relationship between the signifier and the signified.

How would this bond between the signifier and the signified work in post – structuralism?
It would not. Post – structuralism reads the text against itself as opposed to finding an outside meaning. In structuralism there is a unified system of difference; day is only day because it is not night, whereas in post – structuralism, difference is not a stable cause and will not work. Philosophy is used in post – structuralism, making the meaning unstable in itself sing no facts only interpretation, unlike structuralism.