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Post-Structuralism: Deconstruction

Post-Structuralism: Deconstruction. Theory and Practice. Outline . -- Q & A -- Jacque Derrida: 1. Prologue: Instability of Meaning 2. Writing as Différance 3. Transcendental Signified and Binarism 4. Deconstruction: Literary Practice

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Post-Structuralism: Deconstruction

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  1. Post-Structuralism: Deconstruction Theory and Practice

  2. Outline -- Q & A -- Jacque Derrida: 1. Prologue: Instability of Meaning 2. Writing as Différance 3. Transcendental Signified and Binarism 4. Deconstruction: Literary Practice 5. Derrida in Context: structuralism, Foucault, etc. Assignments

  3. Q & A • What is Différance? What is Transcendental Signified? • How is Western Metaphysics challenged? • How do we do deconstruction in literary criticism? Is deconstruction similar to destruction?

  4. Q & A Is deconstruction similar to destruction? Literary Deconstruction: --show the hidden gaps in a text’s meaning. Textual unity -- Reverse the “hierarchical” binaries, and allow the latter to supplement the formers. -- de-stabilize, de-center, but not destroy.

  5. Which of the following statements are not ambiguous? • I am 40 years old. • The Republic of China was born on Oct. 10, 1911. • I love you till the end of the world. • 多吃蔬菜﹐有益健康。 • 中國人生性刻苦耐勞。 • 你要做和事佬﹐真是吹縐一池春水。 • The experience of the earthquake yesterday was quite uncanny.

  6. Which of the following statements are not ambiguous? • I am 40 years old. Who is this “I”? • The Republic of China was born on Oct. 10, 1911. born? • I love you till the end of the world (Apocalypse Now現代啟示錄)  love? • 多吃蔬菜﹐有益健康。 insecticide? Vegi with blue cheese? • 中國人生性刻苦耐勞。 中國人？

  7. Language/Literature as an enclosed system with two Axes Paradigmatic/Selection: • Syntagmatic/Combination • (narrative structure: • roles + actions); • metonymy Thematic structure: Motifs, mythemes, metaphors, etc.

  8. Language/Literature as an enclosed system with two Axes 中國人生性刻苦耐勞。 Paradigmatic/Selection: • Syntagmatic/Combination + more stereotypical descriptions, or a father’s advice to his son, etc. －中國人﹐華人Chinaman －刻苦耐勞／現實／斤斤計較／不懂得人生樂趣

  9. Why is language ambiguous? • Why are meanings undecidable & slippery? 1. Polysemy:Traces of other signs, other meanings. (e.g. national “birthday”; 干卿底事; the uncanny) 2. Multiple Context; Reference Undecidable. (e.g. “The end of the world” ) 3. Meaning is not “present” in language; it happens“in between”signifiers. (e.g. 十八層公寓) 4. (intention and the unconscious)

  10. 吹縐一池春水 Male poet and Waiting woman. • 謁金門 馮延巳 風乍起，吹縐一池春水。 閒引鴛鴦香徑�，手挼紅杏蕊。 鬥鴨闌干獨倚，碧玉搔頭斜墬。 終日望君君不至，舉頭聞鵲喜。 • 中主李璟很欣賞這首詞，便對馮延巳說：「吹皺一池春水，干卿底事？」馮延巳答道：「怎及你的細雨夢回雞塞遠，小樓吹徹玉笙寒呢？」 （http://203.198.70.29/subject/chlt/tangci.htm﹚

  11. 吹縐一池春水（random samples from Internet﹚ • 東元聲寶合併 吹縐一池春水. 中時電子報 03:59 • 免費下載音樂軟體是否侵犯智財權, NAPSTER吹縐一池春水, 受質疑. • 她愛笑，笑得很野，有時不經意的把眉輕鎖，落在河表哥心中，就如吹縐一池春水 (source) Traces of other usages

  12. Freud’s “the Uncanny” • = unheimlich, both “homely” and “unhomely”; or both familiar and strange. • According to Freud's description, the uncanny "derives its terror not from something externally alien or unknown but--on the contrary--from something strangely familiar which defeats our efforts to separate ourselves from it" (Morris; source). • e.g. the Gothic tradition, nightmare, castration fear.

  13. “Spacing”-- • Movement from one Signifier to another 十八層公寓— by 相聲瓦社 -- polysemy: cultural connotations of 十八層地獄, 很持久﹐etc. -- spacing: Meaning changed when the context is further revealed. • Comic effects: old traces vs. newly defined meanings. • The traces of the old meanings are both present and absent.

  14. Writing and Différance Language a system of difference  of Différance. * While structualists had treated binary oppositions as stable terms in a formal structure, Derrida sees them as organized in unstable disequilibrium. because of the presence/absence of traces * Derrida sees the signified’s also in a relation of difference, and they are turned into signifiers floating signifiers. (Textbook: p. 123; 28)

  15. Writing and Différance (2) Différance: • To differ; A sign is defined by its binary opposition to another sign. 2. To defer. The signifier (black) that is distinguished from the other one (white) is not completely erased; it is only deferred, bracketed or merely “put under erasure.”It can subvert the fixed meaning of the sign.

  16. Writing and Différance The chain of signification: (1) symbolization or mythologizing

  17. Manifest Destiny White Man’s Burden God Writing and Différance: chain of signification (1) • Signifier Signified 2 Signified 3 Asian People Yellow Exotic (Evil or Weak) Other Racial Features What they did Other Skin colors Innocent, Strong and Civilized White White Americans The other Americans

  18. Writing and Différance: Chain of Signification (2) Re-contextualization; traces kept. e.g. 1. Pharmakon: 1). poison, 2). Pharmacy 2. 〈幌馬車之歌〉;吹皺一池春水 3. Creole; “Madame Butterfly” in M. Butterfly and in the characters of Song first and then Gallimard; the other parodies.

  19. Chain of Signification 3: floating Signifier （王弼﹚“言者所以明象﹐得象而忘言；象者﹐所以存意﹐得意而忘象。﹒﹒﹒存言者﹐非得象也；存象者﹐非得意者也﹒”  象／言﹐意／象 夏宇︰象 – signs; both present and absent, empty and variously defined.

  20. Question • Do you agree that meaning is always uncertain and slippery? What does Derrida’s views of language shed light on our communication?

  21. The Transcendental Signified and Binaries • The “unmoved mover” e.g. God (transcendental signified) The Bible (transcendental signifier) • (Textbook: p. 124) source/closure of meaning and center of existence. e.g. being, unity, truth, the good, reason, progress, identity, continuity, meaning, subjectivity, authenticity, etc. = foundations

  22. The Transcendental Signified and Binaries They are the upper terms in hierarchical binaries: e.g.

  23. Critique of Metaphysics: logocentrism, & phallogocentrism • Traditional binaries are hierarchical. Should be reversed or questioned. • Logocentrism: Logo as center, source, or founding presence of knowledge and human beings. • Phallogocentrism: Man/Woman= sun/moon, reason/emotion, Subject/Object, etc.

  24. Ways of Questioning the Hierarchical Binaries • The two termsare actually mutually determinant. e.g. The West has to define itself by having/rejecting an “Other” which is different. 2. The weak term is not really weak. 3. Mutually implicated: One term implies its opposite term. examples

  25. Deconstruction: practices (textbook p. 131) 1. Open texts  A text that deconstructs its own unity or “author.” (examples; also M. Butterfly, its ending) 2. Reverse the text’s binaries or expose its undecidability or multiple meanings (example M. Butterfly Madame Butterfly; another); 3. Study the process of signification of a sign or a text and find out what it tries to erase. (e.g. Scarlet Letter; Barthesian studies of commercials)

  26. Deconstruction: practices (2) 4. Find where the text differs from itself. (critical difference) ambiguity and undecidability (example) 5. Radical contextualization  to find out its intertextual references and thus undecidability of meanings.

  27. 〈我把一條河給弄丟了〉 Reasons for the Disappearance of the river: -- My departure; growth -- The cartographer; urban development -- The river itself;  Nature is betrayed and then changes itself; -- “Nobody’s fault.” -- “是童年/把我記錯”-- Why?

  28. 〈我把一條河給弄丟了〉 The original hierarchy subverted by the last line wrong

  29. Deconstruction of Binary Opposition: Example The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Society vs. Nature, with Huck in between

  30. Billy Budd innocent) vs. Claggart (evil) B. Claggart accuses B of planning mutiny.  B’s blow B killer vs. C victim Undecidability: example 1 Billy Budd: Billy Budd (a young sailor), Claggart (master-at-arms), Vere (the captain). Vere responsible and just  Allows an innocent man to be hanged.

  31. Undecidability: example 2 A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. <Gap> No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees. (William Wordsworth )

  32. past life the human fear present death the cosmic peacefulness and regularity Undecidability: example 2 “A slumber did my spirit seal” -- Contradictions between Gap: What happened in between the present and the past? Whose peacefulness is it? Whose death and when?

  33. Derridian Deconstruction in Context 1. Anti-Foundationalist & de-centering; 2. Like New Critics, deconstructionists read closely to find out the contradictions and gaps in a text, but without reconstructing them back to a unity. 3. Like Foucault, D thinks that we are in language and are conditioned by its structure, polysemy and fluidity.

  34. Derridian Deconstruction in Context (2) 4. Other usages of “différance”: desired object in unattainable, constantly deferred and replaced; colonial mimicry disseminate/de-center colonial authority. 5. “différance” and temporary closure.

  35. Assignments • "The Blind Man" 2. Review “The Purloined Letter” 3. Review the whole unit and bring with you at least one question.

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