23 Deconstruction Lecture Notes and Presentation

Slide One

Welcome! I’m Dr. Liza Long, and in this presentation, we’re going to go over structuralism and deconstruction. I just want to say before we get started, prepare to have your mind blown wide open. Up to this point, probably much of what we’ve studied in Critical Worlds has felt at least somewhat familiar to you. We covered New Criticism, from which we took the tool of close reading, also reader response, where we learned the importance of subjective reader response to texts.

But with deconstruction, we’re going to try something that will probably feel new to most of you. So hang on and have fun! With deconstruction, we are going to open the text to a variety of interpretations while exploring how there’s an inevitable gap between the text’s meaning and what the reader takes from the text. Deconstruction of a text does not really focus on the text itself as we did with New Criticism or on the reader as we did with reader response. Instead, our target and the focus of our analysis is the gap, or as French philosopher Jacques Derrida called it, the différance that is present in every text and act of reading.

I’m sure you are wondering what I mean by the gap. Basically, for deconstructionists, true shared meaning is impossible. By the way, when I try to type the word différance, autocorrect in Word does not like it at all. And that’s partly Derrida’s point with this neologism, or as he preferred to call it, a neographism—a new written signifier of an idea that describes the inevitable gap between the signifier and how this signifier will be interpreted. The word itself is a play on the French word difference, which has two meanings in French. It means both difference and deferral. By the way, difference and différance sound the same in French, a fact which “performs” Derrida’s point about language to some extent. The context-relative nature of words creates the gap at the heart of deconstruction.

Slide Two

To understand this concept, we first need an overview of structuralism, the theory that preceded it. The term semiotics refers to the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. This can be extrapolated to language and text, where words are signs or signifiers of meaning. In structuralism, scholars such as anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss were interested in the work of the French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. In the early 1900s, de Saussure had the insight, which may seem obvious to some of us now, that language was really kind of two things. He described this difference (spelled with an e) between parole (the individual act of speaking) and langue (the underlying structure of language that gives meaning to the word in context).

It’s important to note that langue is both the rules of grammar and the societal conventions that surround language. In order to be understood as an individual speaker (parole), we need to follow the rules, the langue. Every language has its own rules. The meaning of parole, according to Saussure, depends on langue, and without both parole and langue, there can be no shared meaning. Our sense of meaning actually depends on those underlying linguistic structures of our native language.

Levi-Strauss, the anthropologist, built on this idea to propose that the meaning of words are context-depending on the linguistic structures of the particular language, and since different languages have different underlying structures, meaning can be difficult to share across cultures. For example, you may have heard that the Russians have no word for blue. In fact, they have several words for varying shades of blue. Similarly, Inuit peoples have multiple words for snow, a word that is culturally significant to them. The structure of our language can help determine how we shape meaning.

But shared meaning also depends on the individual meaning in parole. A sentence can follow the rules of langue and still not have meaning. For example, consider this grammatically correct English sentence: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. While each part of speech in this sentence functions according to the rules of English grammar, the meaning of the individual words in this instance contradict each other.

Structuralists look for signifiers or signs of meaning (the term you may see for this is semiotics). In literary analysis, structuralism challenges the idea that texts reflect reality, instead viewing them as works constituted from linguistic structures and situated among other texts. Structuralism looks for binary oppositions in language. As with New Criticism, the goal of a structuralist literary analysis is to find universal meaning in texts by looking at their underlying structures. It’s important to this type of approach to consider language as a closed system, one with rules that can be known. This type of approach is popular in studying comparative mythology, where Levi-Strauss looks for mythemes, or units of story, that occur across culture.

With this approach, a sign (such as a written word) operates within a linguistic system to signify the meaning that the writer wants to convey, bridging the gap between the world of ideas and the world of material things. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato had a similar idea in mind with his theory of the forms. We might all recognize this object as a chair; the ideal form of a chair is the perfect form, a sense of “chairness.” This approach works well enough with concrete nouns, but it becomes much more difficult when we try to define or signify abstract concepts like “love.”

Slide Three

Deconstruction suggests that it’s not actually possible to bridge that gap between one mind and another with language, and that in fact, meaning is not stable or universal—words can mean different things in different times to different people. As we noted earlier, deconstruction challenges the very notion that meaning can ever be truly shared or captured in a text. For Derrida, the binary can always be deconstructed. The apparent opposition in language is actually hierarchical, which means that one opposite is always privileged over the other one—light privileged over dark, for example. If we temporarily privilege the term with lower hierarchical status, we can show that the meaning of the two opposites are actually intertwined, which makes the idea of binary opposition meaningless. Basically, watch Deadpool to see how this works.

Différance is concerned with how meanings shift and interact. Derrida wants to undercut our essential trust in logos, a Greek word that means both word (literally) and reason. Derrida encourages us to mind the gap, not necessarily between the author’s meaning and the reader’s understanding, but more between the text’s preferred meaning independent of the author (which depends on the author’s culture) and other possible meanings of the text.

Derrida is most often credited as the first practitioner of this particular critical theory, but there are other influential scholars including both Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes. Yes, this started with French academia, but it became hugely influential in academic circles and in literary analysis. If you haven’t watched it already, I would recommend the Lindsay Ellis “Death of the Author” video as an introduction to this approach.

Derrida famously refused to define what deconstruction is. Instead, he would speak about what it’s not. Perhaps his most famous quote is this: “There is nothing outside the text” (Of Grammatology, page 158). This seems to imply that we can’t go outside of language to find meaning. Anything we say will always depend on the meaning of something else (meaning is referential). You’ll get a feel both for Derrida’s playfulness and the complexity of his approach to meaning when you read the short passage on différance.

On a personal note, I was able to attend a lecture that Derrida gave at the University of California Irvine after President Clinton was impeached in 2000. The lecture was entitled “Le Perjure” (the liar). Derrida talked about what lying is when we have no stable meaning for words. His ideas seem really prescient now in light of our ubiquitous “alternative facts” media culture. I think we’re actually seeing these ideas of post modernism and deconstruction play out in real time, with real-world consequences. We’re observing that meaning is not stable. There really is a gap.

Slide Four

Postmodernism is the literary school of writing that developed in conversation with deconstruction as a literary theory. Your reading is Donald Barthelme’s short story, “The Glass Mountain.” Barthelme is widely considered the father of postmodern literature, I think it’s helpful for you to see how these literary theories play out in the real world. For writers, reading this short story will help you to conceptualize what deconstruction and post modernism looks like, from a creative writing standpoint.

I like to look at art when I teach deconstruction because I think it’s helpful to understand that many of these ideas in literature and literary criticism were also evolving in tandem (or perhaps a bit later) than ideas in the art world. Here I have three self-portraits that Picasso created. Picasso is widely associated with the artistic approach known as cubism, which deconstructs an image to its essential elements and considers multiple perspectives. The first self-portrait here was painted when Picasso was a teenager, the second one in middle age, and the third one was painted when he was 89 years old. You’ll notice that when he was 15, his self-portrait looks very realistic, right? His style evolved as he deconstructed himself and his image. We can see this in this visual example some of the principles of deconstructing a text.

Just as we focused on the text with New Criticism, Derrida brings that same approach in deconstruction. We start with a close reading of the text, and you only need to focus on the text you have. But instead of looking for how complexity leads to a unity, you’ll go one step further. You’ll look at how oppositions that exist in the text are actually arbitrary and how they undercut the text’s meaning.

Where we look for things like irony or tension in New Criticism, with deconstruction, we’re actually going to look for absurdity. Find the text’s preferred meaning first. How does the text want you to read it? Then look for ways that the text contradicts itself. You want to pay close attention to any place you see a gap between the text’s preferred meaning and the reader’s understanding of that text.

Slide Five

Consider this text: a sign that says, “No animals allowed except seeing eye dogs.” You may have seen a sign like this outside a store. What does this text mean? How does context shape our understanding of its meaning? What does the sign want us to take as its meaning? And how can the text be read in ways that undercut or subvert that preferred meaning? We might agree, or we might not—that’s the point of deconstruction—that the sign’s preferred meaning is that the only animals allowed in the store are service animals (with their human sight-impaired owners accompanying them of course). But is that really what the sign says? Since people are animals, must visually impaired people, whom this sign is doubtless meant to help, remain outside the store while their dogs are allowed to enter? And which dogs are excluded from this text? Only seeing eye dogs are permitted; others are not. Also, we must consider that the people whom this sign is intended to help, the visually impaired, will not be able to benefit from this sign because they cannot see it. What, then, is the point of this sign?

Slide Six

At this point, if you’re wondering what the point of a critical theory that seeks to show how shared meaning is impossible might be, think about the way that this approach can build empathy and humility. Instead of destroying the text’s meaning, we seek to explore multiple possible meanings, to open the text to additional voices. We don’t have to be so concerned with finding the “right” meaning. Learning to be critical of texts in this way encourages you to question and evaluate your own positions and opinions as well as those found in the vast information stream that constantly bombards our waking moments in the 21st century.  By encouraging us to examine how a text might actually have the opposite of its intended effect, deconstruction can help us to become more careful readers and writers. This method may also help us to see what the text excludes—which meanings are privileged, and which are silenced and to ask ourselves questions about why those voices are silenced.

So how do we do deconstruction? Here’s a short checklist you could follow:

1. Identify the oppositions that are present in the text.
2. Determine which member seems to be preferred by the text.
3. Look for evidence that contradicts this preferred or favored meaning.
4. Expose how this evidence undercuts the text’s meaning.

The place to start when you practice deconstruction is to think about the norm or the convention for the text. You’ll want to pay attention to form and genre, just as you would with New Criticism. What are the things we would expect that text to do within its form or genre? Then look for oppositions in the text and look for a meaning or a theme that the text seems to favor. Which words lead you to conclude that this is the text’s meaning?

So far, this looks like our traditional analysis of theme. But we’re going to move one step further when we do deconstruction. Now that we know the genre and the privileged meaning, we are going to look for ways that the text undercuts or contradicts or subverts the genre and the privileged meaning. You’re really looking for clues in the text, just like you did with New Criticism, but this time, the clues will lead you to gaps in meaning. You’re looking for ways that the text wants to direct us toward a sense of meaning, and then the ways in which the text fails to do this. You’re exposing those failures, those gaps.

I encourage you to have fun with this. One of the hallmarks of this type of criticism is its playfulness and sense of absurdity. Let’s consider “The Glass Mountain” again. This text references a Polish fairy tale, also entitled “The Glass Mountain.” Compare Barthelme’s story with the genre conventions of traditional folk and fairy tales. As an aside, Barthelme is one of my favorite authors. I first encountered him as a first-year college student when I read his short novel Snow White, which is still one of my favorite books. It opened up the possibilities of literature for me, and similarly, deconstruction opens up all kinds of texts to new and interesting interpretations. Deconstruction will be foundational as we learn about New Historical, post-colonial, post-feminist, and queer theory. These ideas will be really important to understanding how literary analysis has progressed. Deconstruction was the foundation for where literary analysis moved from the 1970s to the present.

Slide Seven

I use an image here that shows once again how meaning can be arbitrary. This is a famous painting from Rene Magritte, and it says “this is not a pipe” in French under a picture of the pipe. If you initially protest, think about it. Of course, the statement is true. This is not a pipe—it’s a picture of a pipe. It’s a signifier. And only someone who knows the cultural connections will understand what this is a picture of. I could show many of you a picture of a floppy disk, the storage method for computers in the early 1980s, and you would have no cultural context to understand that picture.

When you’re working on your theoretical responses this week, make sure you are using these terms in your analysis of your chosen text.

• Arbitrary captures the idea that shared meaning really depends on us agreeing that something means something. Think about the word love again, for example. What does the word love mean? Any abstract noun could be an arbitrary word.
• The idea of binary opposition comes from structuralism, as we learned, but deconstruction seeks to undercut any sense of meaning from the binary opposites.
• We spent a lot of time on différance already, and you’ll read about this from Derrida himself. As a reminder, it’s both the idea of difference in meaning and deferral, meaning maybe we can’t actually know the meaning of something until later. Think about a book that you read as a child that maybe you’ve returned to as an adult that maybe that meaning has changed.
• Dispersal is another characteristic of deconstruction. Meaning is scattered, it’s not unified in the text, which is the opposite conclusion from New Criticism. Even though the methodology is similar, you have a different goal with deconstruction.
• Opposition: this is part of our understanding of the binary, but an inevitable consequence of looking at binary opposites is that we start to realize how absurd they are. Things are never black and white; there are many shades of gray (and chartreuse and vermillion, to quote “The Glass Mountain”). Deconstruction can help is to find our “blind spots” when we read and analyze literature.
• Privilege has become this loaded term in our culture, but for the purposes of literary analysis, this is where we’re exploring how the text favors certain meanings over other possible meanings that it does not favor, and you would comment on, on how certain meanings are favored within the text, other meanings are excluded, or you could talk about meanings that were excluded.

Slide Eight

So what are some limitations of this theory? I’ve alluded to this previously, but an obvious limitation can be found in the pitfalls of cultural relativism. If any meaning is allowed, if there is no shared meaning, then what is the point of even trying to communicate? How can civil societies function if we can’t agree what a stop sign means—not to mention bigger ideas like democracy? While deconstruction is useful in questioning norms and conventions, many of these norms and conventions exist for good reasons. However, in the act of forcing us to examine structures, hierarchies, and privileges, we can open our minds to more possibilities than the text previously held. I want to stress here that it’s important to be careful and avoid a cynical approach to texts. Instead, I ask you to emphasize curiosity and keep an open mind as you practice deconstruction.

I’m sure you’ll have lots of questions as you dive into the reading this week. One of them may be, “Do I need to learn French?” and the answer, if you’re an English major who plans to continue your studies in this discipline, is “probably.” But what I would really encourage you to do is have fun with it. Deconstruction at its heart is very playful. It’s an interesting new approach to text. Challenge yourself to think outside the box, think differently, look for those gaps in meaning. And keep in mind that by challenging the preferred meaning of texts, deconstruction opens those texts to new ideas and considerations that were previously excluded from analysis—and it also played an influential role in opening “the canon” to more voices.