Deconstruction PDF

## Literary Theory - It is a lens through which we look at literature. ## Literary Theory - It takes us away from the basic "high school" ways of analyzing literature: - Theme, Setting, Symbolism - Character motivation, Plot, etc. ## Deconstruction ### Unravel: 1. It invites us to ???...

## Literary Theory - It is a lens through which we look at literature. ## Literary Theory - It takes us away from the basic "high school" ways of analyzing literature: - Theme, Setting, Symbolism - Character motivation, Plot, etc. ## Deconstruction ### Unravel: 1. It invites us to ??? the constructs around us and to re-examine appearance and reality. ### Self-contradictory: 2. It seeks to show that a literary work is ???. 3. In high school, we teach that meanings are "fixed" and there is an "answer" or meaning behind works of art. So how does this explain that people have different interpretations of what art is? 4. Most high school teachers would never teach this form of analysis. ### Deconstructionists: 6. are critics who probe beneath the finished surface of a story. Having been written by a human being with unresolved conflicts and contradictory emotions a story may disguise rather than reveal the underlying anxieties or perplexities of the author. 7. ### The story: may have one meaning for the ordinary unsophisticated reader and another for the reader who responds to the subsurface ironies. ## Everyday Deconstruction - Your lives as teenagers are chaotic. - You naturally, every day, try to uncover oppositions and meanings in things. - Your minds are not rigidly set upon fixed meanings. - You accept ambiguity because you are not often given the whole truth. - You are transitioning from childhood to adulthood and are constructing your own identity. ## Everyday Deconstruction - If you have ever listened to someone explain a book, a movie, or any work of art (poetry, painting-even a magazine article) and you wanted to interrupt and say, "But I saw something that contradicts what you are saying." Then, you have practiced deconstruction. ## Deconstruction 1. Focuses on contradictions in art 2. Unravels binaries-shows they are unstable 3. Explore unintended meanings in metaphors 4. Explores instabilities in language ## Jacques Derrida - French philosopher - "Father of Deconstruction" - He came up with the term "deconstruction". ## Binaries - He states that because Western culture understands through ??? hierarchy || privilege we also naturally place one term over the other in a hierarchy. Therefore, one term is "???" over the other. ## Basic Themes ### Deconstructing - by ??? basic units of logic are shown how they contradict themselves. ### Complex - Sees all writing as a ??? ### Historical cultural process - rooted in the relations of texts to each other and in the institutions and conventions of writing. ## Language - operates in subtle and often contradictory ways. ## Certainty - will always elude us. ## Bases of Deconstruction A. Differance B. Logocentrism C. TRACE: Language and Meaning D. Textuality and Intertextuality E. Binary Oppositions ## Differance ### Differences (differance) - All signs have ??? ### Differance - is a play on the French words *différer* and *déferer*. ### Differer - to differ ### Déferer - to defer ### Differance - Derrida uses ??? to describe how meaning is constantly delayed and deferred in language. ## Words - only gain meaning in relation to other words, leading to an endless chain of definitions. ## Ultimate Meaning - is never fully present or fixed. ## Difference - is the ultimate phenomenon in the universe-which enables and results from being. ## Existence - Difference is at the heart of ???, not essence. **Example:** "tree" in relation to "bush" or "plant" or "forest" ## Logocentrism ### Structuralism - is inherently flawed. ## Derrida - He argues that all STRUCTURES have an implied center. ## Derrida - critiques the Western emphasis on a "central" or foundational truth, often symbolized by speech, which is thought to have more immediate connection to meaning than writing. ## Logocentrism - privileges the idea that there is a fixed, ultimate meaning or origin, but deconstruction challenges this; ## Derrida - challenges the stability of this center. In his concept of *différance*, Derrida argues that ## Meaning - is always deferred - It can never be fully present or anchored to one single, unchanging origin. ## The center of any structure - is never fully present or accessible; it is always in a state of deferment, never fully realized. **Example:** The notion that spoken language is valued over written language because it is thought to be closer to the "true" presence of the speaker's thoughts. ## Trace Language and Meaning ### A meaning - is always temporal and part of a network of meanings, part of a chain of meanings in a chain or system to which it belongs which is always changing. ## Trace - What a sign differs from becomes an absent part of its presence. - Every word or concept carries traces of other words and concepts it is defined by and against. ## Isolated, pure meaning - This means that no term has an ???, ???; each one is shadowed by other meanings, making language inherently unstable. They depend upon each other for meaning. They are the alternating imprints of one another. **Example:** Freedom has a trace of "slavery" and "constraint". ## Textuality and Intertextuality - All written and spoken expressions are "texts" that must be interpreted. - All texts refer to other texts (just as signs refer to other signs). ## Every text - is interwoven with others, referring back and forth in ways that continually reshape its meaning. ## Final or pure - There is no ??? or "???" reading of a text. No interpretations are final. ## The authority of any text - is provisional or temporary. ## Binary Oppositions ### Western thought - relies on pairs of opposing terms (e.g., presence / absence, reason / emotion). ### Deconstruction - examines these binaries to show that they are hierarchical and unstable, often privileging one term over the other in ways that shape our understanding but lack an objective foundation. 1. Nature / culture 2. Health / disease 3. Purity / contamination 4. Simplicity / complexity 5. Good / evil 6. Speech / writing ## Dismantling Binaries In Western culture, we think of things in dualistic terms-oppositions - Rich and poor - Man and woman - Sun and moon - Day and night - Masculine and feminine - Life and Death ## Dismantling Binaries ### The positive or privileged term - is usually, but not, always first. It is the standard that all else is compared to; it is the positive concept, while all else is negative. One word is always privileged over the other. ### Philosophy In other cultures, ??? is more pluralistic. Everything contains shades of masculine and feminine; the sun and moon are acknowledged to be in the sky together at the same time; there is no set right and wrong-it changes with the situation. ## Deconstruction - seeks to take apart this binary thinking and prove it is false, that texts are more like Eastern philosophy-containing shades of gray. One of the first things you do when deconstructing a text is look for the binaries that the author sets up. Then, look for ways that the author turns these binaries "upside down". Prove that one binary is not better than another or that both concepts are necessary for the other's existence. You cannot just reverse the binaries because deconstruction is after a bigger game, it "deconstructs" the underlying hierarchy set up in binaries. ## Deconstruction - does not simply reverse the opposition, nor does it destroy it. Instead, it demonstrates its inherent instability. It takes it apart from within, and without putting some new, more stable opposition in its place. ## The Pooh movies are better than the books - (Reverses the usual assumption that the book is better and more original than the mov ## Our sense of Pooh books is derived from the movies. ## The Joker is cooler than Batman - (Reverses notion of the hero) ## Batman is a special kind of villain called a vigilante. ## Women are smarter than men - (Reverses chauvinistic "common knowledge"). ## Men's sense of their intelligence is dependent on a belief that women are bimbos. ## Native Americans are more heroic than cowboys - (Reverses the Western). ## "Cowboy heroism" cannot exist without "bad Indians". ## Deconstructive Interpretation A. Find binary opposition and implied center. B. Refute claims. C. Find contradictions, self-imposed logic that is faulty. D. Focus on what the text is saying other than what it appears to be saying. E. Look for gaps, margins, figures, echoes, digressions, and discontinuities. ## Exploring Metaphors ### Metaphors and figures of speech Another tool for deconstructing art is to look at any ??? present. ### Intended and unintended - Identify their ??? and any ??? meaning. ## Instability of Language ### No fixed -The meanings we receive through language are not ???. "I have a nice car." The sentence will conjure different things in each person's mind, due to each person's history, background, and experiences. It is also to understand the context in which the statement is written and made. ## Steps for Deconstruction 1. Summary of what MOST people would say 2. Binaries in chart 3. Metaphors 4. Words with two meanings 5. Contradictions 6. Shake things up ## Upon first reading, write a brief summary of what MOST people would say about the work. ## Identify binaries in chart ## Identify metaphors (intended and unintended) ## Look for any words that might have two meanings. ## Look for contradictions (does something not make sense?) ## Write about how the work shakes these things up. "What deconstruction is not? Everything of course What is deconstruction? Nothing of course!" -Jacques Derrida, "Letter to a Japanese Friend" ==End of OCR for page 1==