Poststructuralism and Deconstruction

Poststructuralism begins at the point where structuralists start to doubt the adequacy of the

comprehensive theory that they are imposing on literature. Poststructuralism is less concerned with establishing a firm hold on the text than with acknowledging the text’s elusive/slippery nature and

the fallibility of all readings. It stresses the indeterminacy of all texts and the inadequacy of all readings.

Postsructuralism takes its lead from the work of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida who followed the insights of structuralists about language to its conclusion. A central idea is that

language is an infinite chain of words which has no extralingual origin or end. Derrida used Saussure’s concept of difference, that words are defined by their difference from other words. He

then introduced the concept of deference, to show how meaning is endlessly deferred (delayed) as each word leads us on to another word in the signifying system. Normally readers are committed to the notion of presence, to the idea that there should be some outside referent to which the word can relate. According to Derrida, however, the text should be seen as an endless stream of signifiers, with words only pointing to other words, without any final meaning. Such a view rejects the ordering strategies that readers and writers impose on language. The form of criticism that emerges from such thinking is referred to as deconstruction. The terms poststructuralism and deconstruction are often used interchangeably. Strictly speaking, poststructuralism encompasses all the approaches that have developed in the wake of structuralist insights into language. Such approaches step back to look at how we conventionally organize the world. Deconstruction, which originated from Derrida and was later taken up by American critics like Hillis Miller and Geoffrey Hartman is a less broadly-based outgrowth of structuralism. It could also be considered as applied poststructuralism. 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."

A deconstructive reading is a sort of double reading – it acknowledges the way in which the

writer attempts to order things, but then points to the contradictions and problems in the text. Terry Eagleton defines it as ‘reading against the grain’ or as ‘reading the text against itself’ with the purpose of ‘knowing the text as it cannot know itself’. A deconstructive reading uncovers the

unconscious rather than the conscious dimension of the text, all the things which its overt textuality

glosses over or fails to recognize. An example of deconstructionist reading (here, using etymology) is the meaning of the word ‘guest’. Etymologically ‘guest’ and ‘host’ have the same root. However the word ‘host’ comes from the Latin hostis which means enemy or stranger. This hints at a

potential double aspect of a guest, as either welcome or unwelcome. This notion of hostility is like the repressed unconscious of the word.

The critic’s own response can also be deconstructed, for the critic, too, is involved in trying to create coherence where none exists. Derrida’s method is to look closely at individual texts,

searching for the contradictions and gaps in what appears to be a logical argument. However, this

reading also is a misreading as it imposes ordering strategies. The standard ordering strategy of Western culture is the organisation of thoughts into binary pairs – i.e. as good/evil, man/woman,

white/black etc. wherein one of the pairs is privileged and dominant. Derrida draws attention to the presence of and inadequacy of the use of binaries in order to present a coherent case.

One of the key figures in the deconstructive approach to literature is Roland Barthes (later works). Barthes was the first to talk of the openness of texts, the text’s connection with other texts and the reader’s role in the production of meaning. He argued that texts can be either ‘readerly’ or ‘writerly’. A readerly text was one that left the reader with nothing to do – it explained, explicated

and described everything. It controlled meaning and the reader was a mere passive recipient of

meaning. A writerly text, on the other hand, was one where the reader had an active role to play.

The text teased and offered the readers hidden clues to decode. It offered a subtext which the

reader was left to decipher. In other words Barthes was proposing that meaning was not embedded

within the text but within the reader. For Barthes, therefore

1.      The text is plural

2.      The text is open to other texts in an endless series of intertextual operations.

3.      The author is ‘dead’

4.        The ‘pleasures’ of the text lie in the process of playing with the narrative.

Here Barthes puts in a different view of textuality. He argues for an openness and endlessness of meaning-making and narrative process.