Adeel Raza Critical Theories:

Deconstruction

Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a philosophical-critical approach to textual analysis
that is most closely associated with the work of Jacques Derrida in
philosophy and the Yale School (Paul DeMan, J. Hillis Miller, Geoffrey
Hartman) in literary theory and criticism. Derrida, in his own words, "wished
to translate and adapt to [his] own ends the Heideggerian word Destruktion
or Abbau""

One way to understand deconstruction is in terms of a critique of the

binary, oppositional thinking. This is to say, each term in the Western
philosophical/cultural lexicon is accompanied by its binary opposite:
intelligible/sensible, truth/error, speech/writing, reality/appearance,
mind/body, culture/nature, good/evil, male/female, and so on. Derrida shows
that such oppositions constitute a tacit hierarchy, in which the first term
functions as privileged and superior and the second term as derivative and
inferior. The task of deconstruction is to dismantle or deconstruct these
binary oppositions.
As a critical practice, the deconstruction of these oppositions involves
a double movement of overturning of the hierarchy and displacement.
Within literary criticism, the deconstructive method is used to show
that the meaning of a literary text is not fixed and stable. Instead, by
exploring the dynamic tension within a text's language, literary
deconstruction reveals the literary work to be not a determinate object with
a single correct meaning but an expanding semantic field that is open to
multiple, sometimes conflicting interpretations. As Barbara Johnson
clarifies the term,
“A deconstructive reading is a reading which analyses the specificity of
a text's critical difference from itself."
Even, this critical practice of reading may cause a drastic result for a text, as
J. Hillis Miller, one of the most prominent deconstructors, asserts,
“The deconstruction, rather, annihilates the ground on which the
building stands by showing that the text has already annihilated the
ground, knowingly or unknowingly. Deconstruction is not a dismantling
of the structure of the text but a demonstration that it has already
dismantled itself.”
However, Barbara Johnson gives a succinct statement of the aim and method
of deconstructive reading,

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Adeel Raza Critical Theories:
Deconstruction

“If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text,

but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying
over another.”
Thus we see that the text betrays itself, and rather than being a unified
whole, any given text has irreconcilably contradictory meanings.
As a theory, deconstruction argues that the nature of language is such
that a language-user cannot neatly mean what he or she intends to mean
and that this can be demonstrated by showing how the use of certain words
or certain passages in a text resist or contradict the meaning the author
intends for the text as a whole.
Again, a "deconstruction" of a given text describes the failure of the
"appeal to presence" within the text, which, in literary criticism, is
understood as the failure of the text to mean what its author intended it to
mean.
However, Derrida states that “Deconstruction is not a method and
cannot be transformed into one”. It is not a method in the traditional sense
and this means that it is not a neat set of rules that can be applied to any
text in the same way. Rather it is what Derrida terms "an unclosed,
unenclosable, not wholly formalizable ensemble of rules for reading,
interpretation and writing." .
Derrida’s deconstructive theory also involves the key distinction of
differance and difference, which concerns the principle of the continuous
(and endless) postponement or deferral of meaning.
Rejecting the classical anthropological model of language, Derrida
follows the structuralist thesis of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure.
Furthermore, Derrida's thought is post-structuralist; it criticizes Saussure for
privileging speech over writing, in violation of the arbitrariness of the
linguistic sign, and for treating linguistic strings as closed systems of fixed
structures.

Actually, deconstruction is very much difficult to define in terms of

traditional philosophy. Even, Derrida himself gives negative answer to “What
is deconstruction?”

"I have no simple and formalisable response to this question. All my

essays are attempts to have it out with this formidable
question"(Derrida, 1985, p. 4).

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Deconstruction

Thus, by refusing to define deconstruction positively Derrida preserves the

infinite possibility of deconstruction, the possibility for the deconstruction of
everything. (Derrida, 1985, p. 3).

One thing should be mentioned that there is a basic difference

between theory of reception and theory of deconstruction. Reception theory
gives emphasis on the role of the readers in interpreting the meaning of the
text. That is the meaning exists outside of the text. On the other hand,
deconstruction shows that a text may ‘betray’ itself. A deconstructive
criticism of a text reveals that there is nothing except the text. That is, one
can not evaluate, criticize or construe a meaning for a text by refence to
anything external to it.

Now a literary criticism from a Derridean deconstructive perspective

shows that King Lear enacts a philosophic tragedy as much as a personal
one. The crisis of madness in the play is also a crisis of the metaphysical
conceptual regime upon which the play’s values depend.

To conclude, deconstruction has called attention to rhetorical and

performative aspects of language use, and it encouraged scholars to
consider not merely what a text says but rather on the relationship—and
potential conflict—between what a text says and what it “does.”. Though it
leads to ingenious and fascinating interpretations of texts and brilliant
exhibitions of intellectual dexterity, it is unsatisfying. Because,
deconstruction does not take into account the way we experience texts, the
sense we have that they are unique, the way they excite us, generating
feelings and passions in people, or the social and political dimensions of
texts.

Deconstruction is a method of investigating a text which was first started by

Jacques Derrida in 1967. According to Collins Dictionary of Philosophy, “to
deconstruct is to dismantle; next we take a look at the pieces, and then put
them together again after which the whole cycle may recur, for we cannot
take things into bits without some prior notions.” The definition focuses on
knowing what the text is about before beginning to dismantle it. The whole
procedure of dismantling and putting them together is not systematic but it

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Deconstruction

would throw really interesting lights on the subject matter when the bits and
pieces are analyzed.

This philosophical form of literary criticism first appeared in “Structure,

signs, and play in the discourse of human sciences”. Derrida starts the
essay by defining a text. A text according to deconstruction is without a
centre but is bound. Literary theorist Terry Eagleton calls this nature
“Working in Margins”. Anything bounded even by boundaries does have a
centre. Derrida clarifies that the centre is the totality of the text. “There is
nothing outside or beyond the text” says Derrida.

Traditionally, “context” was referred to as the centre that holds the whole
text together. In order to deconstruct, context is never allowed to enter the
text. When an audience reads text with context, then it would be “internal
reading” of the text. Internal reading according to Derrida is insufficient.
Reading a text would constrict the text and rather making it a living thing it
would make the text as a prologue to someone else’s life. Any text is a living
text. He clarifies this by saying “my life as any life is a text”. He wanted texts
to be treated with respect as giving context to the text would only limit its
meaning.

Since there is no context, deconstruction does not allow authors to have

authority over the text. While reading a text, the presence of the author is
not accounted. A text according to Derrida is like a “child who starts talking”.
The child may have his or her parents but when it starts talking,

it would go on talking by itself. “It takes without your help”, says Derrida,
“who doesn’t even answer you expect to your fantasy”. He calls the text
“talking beings who can always outtalk you”.

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Adeel Raza Critical Theories:
Deconstruction

Derrida calls reading a text without a context as “Close reading”. A close

reading would make the text alive and without an author and without a prior
context the text’s meaning could be deciphered subjectively by the readers.
“A close reading is similar to reading the text under a looking glass”, says
Terry Eagleton “where the reader explores every word, phrase, and its
placement.” With every letter, word and phrase understood, the reader can
begin dismantling the text and deciphering the little pieces. If close reading
is applied, a text would have the respect it deserves or in Derrida’s words, it
would be a “a living text”.

In media texts, deconstruction can be primarily used for media literacy.

Decontructing media texts would allow dismantling and studying each word,
audio, or visual piece separately. For example, advertisements can be
studied without their “taglines” or anchorage, to decipher the intend of the
advertisement text. By using deconstruction, people could be able to
understand how the media texts are constructed to convey ideas,
information, and news from someone else’s perspective. Television, radio,
internet, and newspapers use special techniques to create the emotional
affect on people. Deconstruction can be used in deciphering these “special
techniques”.

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Adeel Raza Critical Theories:
Deconstruction

DECONSTRUCTION

What is it?

Deconstruction: A school of philosophy that originated in France in

the late 1960s, has had an enormous impact on Anglo-American
criticism. Largely the creation of its chief proponent Jacques
Derrida, deconstruction upends the Western metaphysical tradition.
It represents a complex response to a variety of theoretical and
philosophical movements of the 20th century, most notably
Husserlian phenomenology, Saussurean and French structuralism,
and Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Deconstruction: The term denotes a particular kind of practice in

reading and, thereby, a method of criticism and mode of analytical
inquiry. In her book The Critical Difference (1981), Barbara Johnson
clarifies the term:

"Deconstruction is not synonymous with "destruction", however. It is

in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word 'analysis'
itself, which etymologically means "to undo" -- a virtual synonym for
"to de-construct." ... If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive
reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination
of one mode of signifying over another. A deconstructive reading is
a reading which analyses the specificity of a text's critical difference
from itself."

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Adeel Raza Critical Theories:
Deconstruction

Deconstruction: School of philosophy and literary criticism forged in

the writings of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida and the
Belgium/North American literary critic Paul De Man. Deconstruction
can perhaps best be described as a theory of reading which aims to
undermine the logic of opposition within texts attracted the sort of
dread and hysteria that deconstruction has incited since its
inception in 1967.

"Deconstruction" as incorporated without meaning into everyday

language, associated with "grunge"

...We think we speak the English, or French, of today. But our

English or French language of today is of yesterday and elsewhere.
The miracle is that language has not been cut from its archaic roots
-- even if we do not remember, our language remembers, and what
we say began to be said three thousand years ago. Inversely
language has incorporated our own times, before even we know, the
most recent elements, linguistic and semantic particles blown by
the present winds.

Deconstruction may be the darling of Europe but in the U.S. it's a

love-hate thing. Creases are ironed out, raw edges refined, grunge
given a touch of polish.

In New York, memories are not only short, they are entirely
selective. Grunge -- the so-called fashion revolution which has
launched a thousand headlines in the past six months -- seemed, at
the American collections last week, never to have happened.

Here, in these few lines, treasures snatched from the most noble,
the most elaborate, the most complex thoughts and discourses of
our century and the sixteenth century imperceptibly touch and are
exchanged.

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Adeel Raza Critical Theories:
Deconstruction

Here, "deconstruction" (though does the woman who goes to buy a

dress know what this is?) has become a term that adds a
"commercial" mark, a surplus value of "modernism" to domains
totally unforeseen by the author of the thinking of deconstruction.
Here is a word derived from philosophical thinking, that of Derrida,
which no longer resides in philosophy, but "launches" fashion
products, bathroom items, sports equipment, political attitudes. In
brief a word which, having left its native shore, henceforth
circulates in the world's blood.

And so this magical word made banal meets (does it know?) another
formula equally magical and rendered banal, this on centuries ago,
that reverberates under a made-up form in the phrase quoted: The
revolution which has launched a thousand headlines. What makes a
comeback here in fashionable dress is Marlowe's beautiful Helen...

DECONSTRUCTION A N D D I F F É RA N C E

1. ABSTRACT
DERRIDA

Jacques Derrida's theory of the sign fits into the poststructuralist movement,
which runs counter to Saussurean structuralism (the legacy of linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure). Maintaining that the signifier (the form of a sign)
refers directly to the signified (the content of a sign), structuralist theory has
passed down a whole current of logocentric (speech-centred) thought that
originated in the time of Plato. With writing as his basis (the written sign),
Derrida has taken on the task of disrupting the entire stream of metaphysical
thought predicated on oppositions. He has elaborated a theory of
deconstruction (of discourse, and therefore of the world) that challenges the
idea of a frozen structure and advances the notion that there is no structure
or centre, no univocal meaning. The notion of a direct relationship between
signifier and signified is no longer tenable, and instead we have infinite shifts
in meaning relayed from one signifier to another.

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Adeel Raza Critical Theories:
Deconstruction

2. THEORY

CONTEXT AND PHILOSOPHY

The term "poststructuralism" refers to a critical perspective that emerged

during the seventies which has dethroned structuralism as the dominant
trend in language and textual theory. In order to understand
poststructuralism, we need to examine it in relation to structuralism.
Deconstructionist criticism subscribes to the poststructuralist vision of
language, wherein the signifier (the form of a sign) does not refer to a
definite signified (the content of a sign), but produces other signifiers
instead. Derrida (1978, 278) takes issue with the centre inherent in the
"structurality of structure". Turning to Claude Lévi-Strauss as a representative
of structuralist theory, Derrida uses the prohibition of incest and the
oppositions nature/culture and universal/prescriptive to show that this
structure can no longer withstand scrutiny: "The incest prohibition is
universal; in this sense one could call it natural. But it is also a prohibition, a
system of norms and interdicts; in this sense one could call it cultural"
(Derrida, 1978, 283).

Derrida thus rejects all of metaphysical history with its hierarchies and
dichotomies that have survived to this day, the foundation upon which all
of logic (logos, which means language) was laid. Derrida has rejected
structuralism, and as a result, the Saussurean schema (the signifier/signified
relationship) has been rethought.

NOTE: DERRIDA ON OPPOSITIONS

What Derrida rejects is binary structure, and this goes beyond

the simple opposition signifier/signified. This structure in fact
underpins the history of philosophy, which conceives the world
in terms of a system of oppositions proliferating without end:
logos/pathos, soul/body, self/other, good/evil, culture/nature,
man/woman, understanding/perception, inside/outside,
memory/oblivion, speech/writing, day/night, etc.)

2.2 CONCEPTS

In order to do justice to Derrida's theory, which applies to both philosophy

and semiotics, we need to accurately define the concepts that shape it. Each
section will include several concepts, given that many of them are tightly
interwoven making it impossible to define one concept without considering
the others.

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Deconstruction

2.2.1 SIGN, SIGNIFIER, SIGNIFIED

The relationship we find in structuralism between signifier and signified no

longer exists. Moreover, there are two ways of erasing the difference
between signifier and signified: "one, the classic way, consists in […]
submitting the sign to thought; the other, the one we are using here as
opposed to the first one, consists in calling into question the system in which
the preceding reduction functioned: first and foremost, the opposition
between the sensible [perceivable] and the intelligible" (Derrida, 1978, 281).

The Derridian conception of the sign, then, is still tied to the structure of
Western philosophy, but the schema in which signifier = signified (the direct
relationship between signifier and signified) has been reconceived.

Consider the example of water:

Water
lake
drops
Signifier "water"----------------- swimming
H2O
--- pool
Glass of
rain
water

Indefinite Signified

When reading the word "water", we might think of water drops, a lake, the
chemical symbol H2O, and so on. We don't necessarily think of a set image
of water, a universal mental representation of it. And then, each concept
(signifier) to which "water" might refer can trigger another signifier. This
infinite chain from signifier to signifier results in a never-ending game and
opens the text, displaces it, sets it in motion.

2.2.2 WRITING, TRACE, GRAPHIE, GRAM

Words naturally refer to or "reference" other words. Derrida's grammatology

advances the idea that writing is originary in the same way speech is; there
is a perpetual tension without a power struggle. Consequently:

-Writing cannot be a reproduction of spoken language, since neither one

(writing nor spoken language) comes first.
-Conceived in this way, writing is far more than the graphie [written form]; it
is the articulation and inscription of the trace.

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Deconstruction

As for the trace, it is originary, not original: it conveys the impossibility of an

origin, or centre. It is the non-origin of origin. It is "the absolute origin of
sense in general. […]The trace is the differance which opens appearance
[l'apparaître] and signification" (Derrida, 1976, 65). "If the trace […] belongs
to the very movement of signification, then signification is a priori written,
whether inscribed or not, in one form or another, in a 'sensible' and 'spatial'
element that is called 'exterior' " (1976, 70).

Derrida also discusses the trace as arche-writing, "at first the possibility of
the spoken word, then of the graphie" (1976, 70).

The concept of the "graphie", or written form, relies on the trace for its
existence, and it implies "the framework of the instituted trace, as the
possibility common to all systems of signification" (1976, 46). When we
associate the trace with the graph (gestural, visual, pictorial, musical or
verbal), this trace becomes a gram (letter). Only at this instant does the
outside appear (as opposed to the inside), as a "'spatial' and 'objective'
exteriority" (1976, 70).

The arche-writing that Derrida is talking about is in fact a broader notion of

writing conceptualized in terms of différance. This différance (thea is a trace,
a gram) as temporalization is the trace [track] of the written language in the
spoken. For instance, punctuation signs are supplemental to speech, not a
reproduction of it.

2.2.3 TEXT, TEXTUALITY, CLOSURE, NON-CLOSURE

According to Derrida, the text cannot be explained by its origins (author,

society, history; in other words, context) since repetition is the origin.
The text is writing, and writing is langue (non-intention). It is langue relative
to the discourse that implements it.

However, reading is what makes text and writing possible. Arche-writing is

reading that includes writing. Writing is characterized by textuality, which is
at once the closure and non-closure of the text: "But one can conceive of the
closure of that which is without end. Closure is the circular limit within which
the repetition of difference infinitely repeats itself. That is to say, closure is
its playing space. This movement is the movement of the world as play…"
(1978, 250).

2.3 THE THEORY OF DECONSTRUCTION

Derrida has been interested in one particular opposition: the opposition

between writing and speech [voix]. Derrida's critical approach to

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Adeel Raza Critical Theories:
Deconstruction

deconstruction shows us that dualisms are never equivalent; they are always
hierarchically ranked. One pole (presence, good, truth, man, etc.) is
privileged at the expense of the second (absence, evil, lie, woman, etc.).

In the case of speech and writing, we have attributed to speech the positive
qualities of originality, centre and presence, whereas writing has been
relegated to a secondary or derived status. Ever since Plato, the written word
has been considered as a mere representation of the spoken word: this is
what Derrida calls the logocentric tradition of Western thought.

"Deconstruction refers to all of the techniques and strategies used by Derrida

in order to destabilize, crack open and displace texts that are explicitly or
invisibly idealistic" (Hottois, 1998).

However, to deconstruct is not to destroy, and deconstruction is achieved in

two steps:

1. A reversal phase: Since the pair was hierarchically ranked, we must first
extinguish the power struggle. During this first phase, then, writing must
dominate speech, other must prevail over self, absence over presence,
perception over understanding, and so on.

2. A neutralization phase: The term favoured during the first phase must be
uprooted from binary logic. In this way, we leave behind all of the previous
significations anchored in dualistic thinking. This phase gives rise to
androgyny, super-speech, and arche-writing. The deconstructed term thus
becomes undecidable (Hottois, 1998, 306).

Deconstruction is being applied to texts, most of which are taken from the
history of Western philosophy. The new terms become undecidable, then,
rendering them unclassifiable, and causing two previously opposed poles to
become merged.

NOTE: PLATO'S PHARMAKON

Derrida conducted a deconstructionist reading of a famous text

by Plato in which there is a merging of opposite poles;
according to this reading, the pharmakon, "this 'medicine', this
philter, which acts as both remedy and poison, already
introduces itself into the body of the discourse with all its
ambivalence. This charm, this spellbinding virtue, this power of
fascination, can be - alternately or simultaneously - beneficent
or maleficent" (1981, 70). He adds that "'If the pharmakon is
ambivalent, it is because it constitutes the medium in which

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Deconstruction

opposites are opposed, the movement and the play that links
them among themselves, reverses them or makes one side
cross over into the other (soul/body, good/evil, inside/outside,
memory/forgetfulness, speech/writing, etc.)" (1981, 127).

This theory has been taken up by literary scholars and writers, most notably
the feminists, who have used the deconstructionist approach and the
strategy of différance to give birth to new terms that bypass dualisms in
general, but more pointedly, the feminine/masculine dualism founded on
pathos/logos and other/self.

To deconstruct is to bypass all rigid conceptual oppositions

(masculine/feminine, nature/culture, subject/object,
perception/understanding, past/present, and so on) and to not treat concepts
as if some were different from others. Each category preserves a trace of the
opposite category. (For example, androgyny carries traces of masculine and
feminine; the traces of the observer remain in an objectively pursued
scientific experiment; in nature, the law of survival of the fittest has
repercussions in social organization and structures.)

2.4 THE THEORY OF DIFFÉRANCE

The term différance originated at a seminar given by Derrida in 1968 at

the Société française de philosophie. The term in itself represents a synthesis
of Derrida's semiotic and philosophical thinking. All of the concepts defined
earlier are active in this theory.

The grapheme a represents several features in the application of this theory:

1. Différance is the difference that shatters the cult of identity and the
dominance of Self over Other; it means that there is no origin (originary
unit). Différer [to differ] is to not be identical.

2. Différance marks a divergence that is written: the a that we can see, but
not hear.

3. Différer [to defer] is to displace, shift, or elude.

4. Différance is the future in progress (the fight against frozen meanings); it

is the displacement of signifying signifiers to the fringe, since there is no
organizing, original, transcendental signified.

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Adeel Raza Critical Theories:
Deconstruction

The writing of différance refers to itself, because it breaks with the concepts
of signified and referent. The emphasis on the theme of writing functions as
an antidote against idealism, metaphysics and ontology.

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