DECONSTRUCTION

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 Deconstruction

Introduction

.Founded by a French philosopher Jacques Derrida, Deconstruction emerged as

the most controversial yet the most influential theory in the realm of

philosophy and literary criticism in 1960’s. Derrida introduced this term in his

epoch making book Of Grammatology published in 1967, though his famous

lecture on Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences

delivered at John Hopkins University on 21 st October 1966 is considered to be

its birthday. As a critical theory it has had deep impact in the fields of

philosophy, literary criticism, arts, humanities, politics, architecture and law. It

not only challenged the traditional concepts that had been in vogue for ages in

one form or the other, but also overturned them by its forceful assertions. In

this sense, it sent shock waves in philosophical and literary circles which were

not accustomed to such revolutionary theories. The sting of deconstruction lies

in its complete negation of the traditional concepts of logocentricism, absolute

truth, stability of meanings, textual structures, and binary oppositions which, in

Derrida’s opinion, are reflections of Western metaphysics.As an alternative, it

presents the concepts of lack of structures and finality of meanings in the texts.

Basic Assumptions

Jacques Derrida insisted that Deconstruction should not be reduced to an idea

or a method having certain principles. It is multidimensional critical approach.

“It has been variously presented as a philosophical position, a

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political and intellectual strategy, and a mode of reading"

(Culler, 1983). As for literature, it may be called acritical approach to a text

or an act of reading in which the reader is confronted with multiplicity rather

indeterminacy of meaning and which dismantles traditional concepts about

structures and meaning in the text. It suspends everything that we take for

granted about language, experience and possibilities of human

communication .It is an activity of thought which perhaps cannot be

consistently carried on but definitely possesses an undeniable rigour of its own.

( Norris 1991). As opposed to other theories that portray text as bearer of stable

meaning and the critic as seeker of truth in the text, deconstruction rules out the

possibility of truth or a definite meaning in a text and portrays critic as a co

creator who deconstructs the text in an endless pursuit of infinite meaning.

According to practitioners of Deconstruction, a text deconstructs itself by

saying what it asserts as well as its reverse. The following statements of

American deconstructionists show that this approach subverts traditional

reading which tries to restrict the meaning.

To deconstruct a discourse is to show how it undermines the philosophy it asserts

(Culler 1983)

A deconstruction then shows the text resolutely refusing to offer any privileged

reading…deconstructive criticism clearly transgresses the limits established by the

traditional criticism.(Leitch 1979)

"It's possible, within text, to frame a question or undo assertions made in the text, by

means of elements which are in the text, which frequently would be precisely

structures that play off the rhetorical against grammatical elements.(De Man 1986).

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However, the most commonly cited clarification of basic idea of literary

deconstruction comes from Barbara Johnson,(1980)

“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 deconstruct’. The

deconstruction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary

subversion, but by the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification

within the text itself. 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.”

Historical Background

Derrida’s lecture on Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human

Sciences provides the background of his theory of Deconstruction. In his

lecture Deridda asserts that Western metaphysics is primarily logo centric that

aims at continual search for a logos or a centre. Logos promises to give

meaning and purpose to all things and serves as universal centre and

transcendental signified that all the signifiers can be referred to. Since Plato,

there has been change in the name of this logos. It has been named as ideal,

pure or God. In Derrida’s opinion even Structuralists, despite their departure

from Western metaphysics , have sought for the centre and for them the

structure is the centre. Moreover they are looking for binary oppositions to

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find meaning in the structure. Differing with the views of Structuralists,

Deridda dismantles all such attempts to conceive a centre and frame a system

of binaries. Therefore, he criticizes modern critics such as Saussure more than

he criticizes traditional critics. So far as Derrida’s metaphysical views are

concerned, Nietzsche. Freud and Heidegger can be considered as his

predecessor. Nietzsche did away with the concept of truth and being. Freud

negated the faith that subject self can function as logo centric presences or

transcendental signified whereas Heidegger refuted the concept of being as a

presence of eternal or pre existent “I Am”. Talking of western Metaphysics,

Derrida rejects both Platonic and Christian ideas that transcendental signified is

truth. Rather he seems to be agreeing with Gorgius, the Greek Sophist and rival

of Plato who propounded that

1 Nothing exists

2 If it exists, it cannot be known

3 If it can be known, it cannot be communicated.

The first concept is negation of ontology, the study of being, the second one is

negation of epistemology, and the study of knowing and the third one is the

failure of linguistics, the study of language. Derrida opines that this rejection

leads us to directionlessness and waywardness of mind called Aporia. But

Aporia is not a negative state of mind but an affirmation of the play of the

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world and of innocence of being. It does not lead us towards nostalgic longing

for meaning.

Deconstruction, a Reaction to Structuralism

Deconstruction as a strategy of reading was an immediate reaction against

Structuralism. Derrida’s attitude toward language can be understood against the

background of Saussure’s Structuralist linguistics (Course in General

Linguistics) which is the key to understanding his theory of Deconstruction.

According to Saussure linguistic signs or the relationship between the signifier

and the signified is arbitrary which is evident from the fact that in different

languages different signs are used to refer to the same object. Saussure is also

of the view that the language is self referential and the meaning emerges due to

the difference between linguistic signs. Difference of sound i.e. substitution of

vowel and consonant sound generate meaning .In this sense ,language is

diacritical or dependent on economy of difference with which relatively small

range of linguistic elements signify a vast range of meanings. Derrida agrees

with the views of Saussure that in each present sign there are traces of absent

sign. However, he differs with Saussure so far as the idea of erasure is

concerned. In his opinion traces of absent signs in present signs constitute

erasure. What is said is erased by the traces of the absent signs.

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Concept of Differance

Adding in to the Saussure’s idea of meaning being a product of linguistic

differences, Derrida coined his term ‘Differance’ which embodies two words

differ and defer. The former refers to linguistic difference of signs while the

latter refers to postponement or deferral of meaning, As Gayatri C. Spivak

explains in the translation of Derrida's ‘Of Grammatology’,

strange is the nature of a sign that "half of it is always 'not

there' and the other half always 'not that’. Differing is spatial

while deferring is temporal. Each sign has these two features.

This means that each sign is half adequate and half

inadequate. Though it does not convey the idea perfectly, yet

it has to be used because no other adequate sign is available.

This inadequacy of language deprives it from carrying any

stable or definite meaning. According to Derrida each sign is a

signifier whose signified is signifier of another signified. This

process is infinite as well as circular since signifiers transform

themselves in to the signified and vice versa. Because of this

natural instability of language, instability of meaning prevails

and any attempt to convey truth is aborted. This is because

each so called present element refers to something else,

retains the mark of preceding element and is shaped by its

relation to the subsequent element.Derrida calls this influence

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of past and future element ‘trace’ and contends that it

prevents identification of linguistic sign.

Dismantling of Hierarchical Oppositions

Deconstruction rejects the concept of ‘structure’ that reduces

the text to a manageable compass and aims at undoing the

given order of priorities and system of conceptual oppositions

that serve as foundation of ‘structure.’ Derrida does not share

the faith of Structuralists in the structure and binary or

hierarchical oppositions. According to Robert Con Davis and

Roland Schleifer (1989), Deconstruction is a strategy of reading

and deconstructive reading starts from "a philosophical

hierarchy in which two opposed terms are presented as the

'superior' general case and the 'inferior' special case. These

opposed terms are too many but the most common binaries

include good/evil, day/night, male/female, active/passive, and

nature/culture. However, all of them are not "natural"

oppositions. Some might be considered "cultural, others

"biological," and still others "thematic" (Green and

Lebihan1996); Binary positions are not universal but culturally

variable. For example, Yin and Yang are purely Eastern

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concepts, while Apollonian and Dionysian distinctions in

literary realm come from Greek mythology. Derrida and his

counterparts discover that these pairs, however reasonable

they may appear, are not simply oppositions; they are

hierarchies. In each pair, one term is viewed as being superior

and also the general case while the other is regarded as

inferior. For instance, the term "man" can be used to signify

"human," but "woman" can only refer to the special case of a

female human being. Moreover, the superior term in each

hierarchy dominates the inferior one, serving as the standard

against which the inferior term is defined. We know what "evil"

is because it is not "good" in itself. When it is "dark," there is

no "light."Therefore, these secondary terms are described by

virtue of the absence of certain qualities that mark the

superior terms. The former is given great priority over the

latter. In other words, the one establishes its authority over of

the other.

Deconstructionists take great interest in the operation of

binary oppositions and question the inherent logic on which

these oppositions are based. By examining the interaction of

the two opposites within each hierarchy, they can trace the

distribution of power between these two extremes. Derrida

claims that in a traditional philosophical opposition we have a

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violent hierarchy. One of the two terms governs the other or

has the upper hand. To deconstruct the opposition, first of all,

is to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment. (Deridda

1981)To overturn the violent hierarchy, Derrida first exposes

how the privileged term depends upon the suppressed one in

the process of accumulating its own meaning. He detects that

truth, social norms as well as standards gain their identity and

authority by gestures of exclusion via differentiation. It is an

act of opposition and differentiation that expels those which

are conventionally considered inferior, secondary, derived,

contaminated, and added on into an outside that then allows

an inside to be established (Rivkin and Ryan 1998). Only when

what belongs to the outside is discriminated and excluded can

those superior and original terms secure their position on the

inside or at the center.

Consequently, there is no such thing as "a prior truth" that is

entirely self-sufficient, without needing an opposed term from

the outside to define against.

Since the privileged term cannot come into being without the

presupposition of the presence of its antithesis in the

hierarchy, and since difference should always exist prior to the

establishment of identity and authority, we can conclude that

the boundary that demarcates the inside from the outside is

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actually ready to collapse. "Perhaps what is outside is also

somehow inside," as Terry Eagleton notes, "what is alien is also

intimate. . . .the absolute frontier between the two

realms . . .may always be transgressed, has always been

transgressed already, and is much less absolute than it

appears" (LiteraryTheory 1983). Thus, by laying bare the logic

of binaries and displacing the very basis of Western

philosophy, Derrida succeeds in challenging established

values, destabilizing hierarchies, and undermining the absolute

truth as well as power systems.

To illustrate this rather abstract and somewhat obscure

reversal of hierarchies,

Nietzsche's deconstructive argument of causality is often cited

as a prototype. The principle of causality is fundamental to

human reasoning. We always trace back an effect because we

take it for granted that causes produce effects. Following the

logic of the principle of causality, causes have priority over

effects. Causes are prior and prerequisite to effects. However,

Nietzsche emphasizes that the concept of causal structure is in

fact a result of chronological reversal. When feeling a pain,

man is tempted to look for a cause. If a pin meets this need, it

will be associated with this pain and considered as the cause of

it.Man then reverses the perceptual order (from a pain to a pin)

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to produce a causal sequence (from a pin to a pain).

Consequently, the cause assumes the role of the origin, the

primary, while the effect is derived, secondary, and dependent

upon the cause. A deconstructive study of the principle of

causality, however, will highlight the fact that it is the

experience of pain that causes man to search for the pin as its

cause.Were it not for the effect, there would be no cause. In

this sense, the effect causes the production of a cause, rather

than the other way round. In so doing, deconstruction

undermines the hierarchy of cause/effect and implies that it is

the effect rather than the cause that should be treated as the

origin, since the former is what causes the cause to play the

role of a cause. Jonathan Culler concludes, "If either cause or

effect can occupy the position of origin, then origin is no longer

originary; it loses its metaphysical privilege. That is to say, by

throwing the order and priority implied by the opposition into

question, the boundary between the hierarchies will be blurred,

and as long as the two poles of any binary pair can exchange

properties, "the prioritizing between them is erased" (Beidler

1990). As a consequence, the deconstructive reading undoes

the rhetorical operation responsiblefor creating hierarchies.

Writing versus Speech

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Another essential feature of Deconstruction is the importance

that Derrida attaches to the writing vis-à-vis speech. He

observes metaphysics at work behind the privilege granted to

speech in Saussure’s methodology. He asserts that

metaphysics, linguistics and structuralism give primary

importance to the speech and treat writing as secondary, a

derivative mode of expression. Metaphysically speaking ‘voice’

becomes a metaphor of ‘truth’ and authenticity. Derrida says

that proximity of voice with transcendental reality is

phonocentricism that is a kind of logocentricism. This concept

was based on the notion that in speaking one is able to

experience an intimate relation between sense and sound and

is led to transparent understanding of meaning whereas

writing is a depersonalized medium, a shadow between intent

and meaning. The spoken word is primary because written

word is the graphic representation of spoken word on in other

words it is a signifier of a signifier. Rousseau, too, considers

speech as the most ‘natural’ condition of language and regards

writing as supplement of speech.Derrida argues that writing

must be perceived prior to speech. In his opinion writing is an

endless displacement of meaning which not only governs

meaning but also places it beyond the reach of stable

knowledge. What Saussure terms as ‘natural bond’ between

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sound and sense is in fact a delusion produced by age old

‘repression of feared and subversive writing’. Derrida aims at

showing that writing emerges within the very theme of speech.

He uses the word ‘ericture’ to refer to writing that amounts to

creation. He terms the prevailing concept of writing as ‘vulgar

concept’ and in response introduces the concept of ‘Arche

Writing’ that encompasses speech as well as writing and is

unhindered by the differences between the two. ‘Arche Writing’

contains graphic as well non graphic expressions. It can be a

portrait, a gesture, a spoken or a written word.

Various Views about Deconstruction of Text

Deconstructive criticism is based on the notion of the infinite

regress of signifiers and indeterminacy of meaning or a free

play of signifiers without a centre. The reader or the critic

dismantles and decomposes the text into fragments and then

reassembles them. “He co authors the text; constructs in a

different way from what he has deconstructed. Deconstructive

readings show scant respect for the wholeness and integrity of

individual works.”(Seturaman 1989) Deconstruction is an

insight in to the blindness of an author’s text. Paul de Man

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describes it as “to bring to light what had remained

unperceived by the author and his followers”(De Man 1971).or

Derrida describes it as to show the text “ what it does not

know”(Spivak 1976) .the emphasis on proliferation of meaning

is linked to the deconstructive concept of iterability which is

the capacity of signs and texts to be repeated in a new

situation and contexts. Derrida’s phrase “iterability alters”

(Derrida 1977) means that the insertion of texts in to new

contexts continually produces new meanings that may be

similar to or different from the previous understanding.

Deconstruction may consider the multiple meanings of key

words in a text, etymological relationship between words, and

even puns to show how the text speaks with different (and

often conflicting) voices (Balkin 1990).Therefore,

deconstruction does not show that all texts are meaningless

but highlights that they are overflowing with multiple and even

conflicting meanings. Derrida suggests in ‘Deconstruction and

Criticism’ that “A text…..is hence forth no longer a finished

corpus of writing, some content enclosed in a book or its

margins, but a differential network, a fabric of traces referring

endlessly to something other than itself to other differential

traces. Thus the text over runs all the limits assigned to it so

far……all the limits, everything that was set up in in opposition

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to writing (speech. life, the world, the, real, history and what

not”

Deconstructive View of “Heart of Darkness”

A deconstructive analysis of“Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad exposes its

deep-seated contradictions by delving below its surface meaning. The river

appears to be separating Marlow from as well as leading to depth of evil.

"Brown current" is in opposition to what water normally stands for. Water is

often seen as a cleansing agent, but here it is brown, representing evil. Water

cannot purify the souls because it is contaminated with the civilization of the

colonialists. Kurtz is the source of evil tainting all of Africa. As a result,

anything that comes in contact with the tainted river is inherently tainted.

Marlow is as tainted and corrupt as Kurtz is and cannot be termed as the hero

of the piece.Water cannot purify the souls because it is contaminated with the

civilization of the colonialists."The brown current ran quickly out of the heart

of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our

upward progress; and Kurtz's life was running swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing, out

of his heart into the sea of inexorable time.”

Binary oppositions of light and darkness, white and black have been

dismantled. The so called enlightenment of white colonialists is augmenting the

darkness of Africa .White men are incarnation of darkness and white ivory

stands for darkness of lust. The idea that light represents truth, goodness, and

honesty has been negated. On the contrary, it stands for deceit, evil, and crash

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of civilization. Physical darkness of jungle is one aspect but light of innocence

of its dwellers is another .When Marlow is going up the river to the station and

the steamer is attacked by the natives, The Helmsman is killed. Marlow thinks

the Helmsman to be the heaviest man on earth but current pulls him away like a

single blade of grass. Weight loses its meaning .Thus the novel has a lot more

to offer than just being a parable of good and evil or a tragic tale of

colonialism.

Conclusion

To sum up, it can be asserted that Deconstruction is an active anti thesis of

traditional criticism. It rejects all earlier methods of criticism and supplies no

single method. There has been a very hostile criticism on its basic tenets. De

Man complains that Deconstruction has either been dismissed as a harmless

academic game or denounced as a terrorist weapon. Some critics of

Deconstruction denounce it on the grounds that it enables the critic to overtake

the author, not as an interpreter but as a co creator. Despite its limitations it has

certainly jolted the very foundations of literary criticism and opened new

avenues in this discipline.

References
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