“Meanings can indeed be forgotten, but only if we have chosen to bring to bear upon the text a singular scrutiny.”
Barthes suggests that meanings in texts are established through the reader’s perception and own emotive responses. He argues against the idea that a singular meaning is imbedded by the author for the reader to decipher. In the same way, the human experience is complex, meaning in literature should also be approached in that respect. In that meaning should not be imposed from the author’s single perspective but should be deciphered by the reader’s own thought structures. Thus, the assertion alludes to this philosophy which subverts the notion that singular scrutiny should be imposed on a text.
“The text, in its mass, is comparable to a sky, at once flat and smooth, deep, without edges and without landmarks…the commentator traces through the text certain zones of reading, in order to observe therein the migration of meanings, the outcropping of codes, and the passage of citations.”
Barthes further emphasizes the progression of stories as a significant factor in offering structure to the reader’s understanding. The plot progression guides the commentator through the experiences of the text to allow them to understand the codifications. Book symbols contain codified material for the reader to decipher cognitively for meaning to be established. How the author arranges his information creates the platform for which the reader deduces meaning. The statement, therefore, highlights this reader’s development is going through a text that is initially just a mass of information with no meaning.
