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Deconstruction

Deconstruction. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice Charles E. Bressler. A Review of Structuralism. Language is primary means of signification Signification is how we achieve meaning through linguistic signs and other symbols

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Deconstruction

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  1. Deconstruction Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice Charles E. Bressler

  2. A Review of Structuralism • Language is primary means of signification • Signification is how we achieve meaning through linguistic signs and other symbols • Language comprises its own rule-governed system to achieve meaning • Language is not the only sign system • Act of reading is a cultural and social practice that contains its own codes • Meaning in a text resides in these codes

  3. Structuralism, continued • Reader has mastered codes before he/she ever picks up the text • Proper study of literature is inquiry into conditions surrounding the act of interpretation itself, not the investigation of the text • Structuralists seek to discover the overall system (langue) that accounts for the individual interpretation (parole)

  4. DECONSTRUCTION • Challenges structuralist assumptions that a text’s meaning can be discovered through and examination of its structural codes. • Operates under the maxim of undecidability • Asks a new set of questions to show that what a text claims it says and what it actually says are different

  5. DECONSTRUCTION • Casts doubts on previously held theories that sought to find meaning(s) in a text • Declares that a text has an almost infinite number of possible interpretations • Some assert that interpretations are as creative and important as the text

  6. Modernism Postructuralism Postmodernism Deconstruction Signification Langue Parole Mimetic Phonology Grammar Syntax Signifier Signified Sign Transcendental Signified Logocentrism Binary Oppositions Privileged Unprivileged Important Terms to Know

  7. TERMS, continued • Phonocentrism • Metaphysics of presence • Supplementation • Differance

  8. MODERNITY • Human ability to reason and to grasp truth (Enlightenment) • Undoubtable truths supplied by mathematics • Science can lead the way to complete understanding of the physical world

  9. MODERNITY • Power and strength of individual mind • Truth is to be discovered scientifically • Texts possess some objective knowable existence that may be analyzed

  10. POSTMODERNISM • Challenges modernity’s view of world • No objective reality • All definitions of truth are subjective • Truth is relative • Map of meaning replaced with metaphor of collage • Reality is human construct • Meaning is provisional • Decline of influence of religious systems

  11. Ferdinand Saussure • Linguistic SIGN (word) • SIGNIFIER (spoken sound or written symbol) • SIGNIFIED (concept signaled by signifier)

  12. Linguistic Sign • Is defined by differences that distinguish if from other signs

  13. SPOKEN OR WRITTEN FORM Read this word: FIRE Say this word: FIRE SIGNIFIER

  14. SIGNIFIED: concept or thing

  15. SIGNIFIED: concept or thing

  16. Fire?????????

  17. Arbitrary. . .

  18. Key Eye Note Lie Guys Honey Home Post Book Girls Baby Heart Sign Is Arbitrary

  19. DERRIDA AND SAUSSURE • Derrida affirms concept of language system based on difference • Derrida asserts that the signified can also only be known through relationships

  20. I filled the glass with milk. • Glass is signifier of the signified concept of a container to hold the milk • HOWEVER, IN THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE. . .

  21. The container was filled with glass. • Spoken or written “container” was signified in previous sentence, but • Now is the signifier • Its signified the concept of an object that can be filled • Notice the changing use of the word GLASS

  22. LOGOCENTRISM: Western desire to find a center and its belief in ultimate reality or center of truth to serve as basis for all thoughts and actions • Western metaphysics invents a variety of terms to function as centers • Each can operate as a concept that is self-sufficient and self-originating • Thus serving as transcendental signified

  23. Deconstruction: a new reading strategy • Discover binary oppositions that govern a text • Comment on values, concepts, ideas beyond the binaries • Reverse these binaries • Dismantle previously held worldviews • Accept possibilities of various perspectives or levels of meaning • Allow meaning to be undecidable

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