Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term that French philosopher Jacques Derrida introduced in 1966. It is a controversial school of literary criticism.
Initially considered elitist, nihilistic, and subversive of humanistic ideals, deconstruction has been much debated in academe and has gained more widespread acceptance, although it still remains, to an extent, a radical way of analyzing texts.
Deconstruction theory embraces the precept that meaning is always uncertain.
It is not the task of the literary critic to illuminate meaning in a given work.
Derrida began with Saussure's ideas of the signified and the signifier. This idea is rampant in a field called semiotics. Saussure is important to the field of Semiotics.
How deconstruction works:
An idea (the signified) is represented by a sign (the signifier. for example, a word), but the sign can never be exactly the same as the idea. The word LOVE can approach the idea of LOVE, but it isn't exact. The word or signifier LOVE may not hold the entire concept due to connotation and cultural understanding, for example. As a concept or idea LOVE may mean many things to many people--its meaning or idea (the signified) differs from mind to mind. The signified (idea) defers meaning to the signifier (word). The signified (idea) contains a trace of the signifier (word), but also of its opposite. By using the word LOVE, we automatically imply the opposite: HATE because it excludes or filters out all that is NOT love. Hence, when we use one word over another in writing, we are leaving out other words that we could have used. Examining this is the root of deconstruction.
According to deconstruction, the job of the literary critic is to look for “slippage” in the text—to note duplicity, or to expose how a text has violated the linguistic and thematic rules it has set up internally. Calling attention to breaks in the internal logic of a literary text achieves its deconstruction.
Deconstruction itself can be deconstructed, however, and the process goes on indefinitely.
More can be read here about Deconstruction.
Initially considered elitist, nihilistic, and subversive of humanistic ideals, deconstruction has been much debated in academe and has gained more widespread acceptance, although it still remains, to an extent, a radical way of analyzing texts.
Deconstruction theory embraces the precept that meaning is always uncertain.
It is not the task of the literary critic to illuminate meaning in a given work.
Derrida began with Saussure's ideas of the signified and the signifier. This idea is rampant in a field called semiotics. Saussure is important to the field of Semiotics.
How deconstruction works:
An idea (the signified) is represented by a sign (the signifier. for example, a word), but the sign can never be exactly the same as the idea. The word LOVE can approach the idea of LOVE, but it isn't exact. The word or signifier LOVE may not hold the entire concept due to connotation and cultural understanding, for example. As a concept or idea LOVE may mean many things to many people--its meaning or idea (the signified) differs from mind to mind. The signified (idea) defers meaning to the signifier (word). The signified (idea) contains a trace of the signifier (word), but also of its opposite. By using the word LOVE, we automatically imply the opposite: HATE because it excludes or filters out all that is NOT love. Hence, when we use one word over another in writing, we are leaving out other words that we could have used. Examining this is the root of deconstruction.
According to deconstruction, the job of the literary critic is to look for “slippage” in the text—to note duplicity, or to expose how a text has violated the linguistic and thematic rules it has set up internally. Calling attention to breaks in the internal logic of a literary text achieves its deconstruction.
Deconstruction itself can be deconstructed, however, and the process goes on indefinitely.
More can be read here about Deconstruction.
Comments