Deconstructive Criticism Example

[Lida Rick]

JacquesDerrida is the originator of deconstruction. As M.H. Abrams points out in A Glossary of Literary Terms, however, Derrida did not intend for deconstruction to serve as a method for writing literary criticism. Rather, Derrida viewed deconstruction as a technique for exposing and subverting many assumptions of Western thought in a variety of texts (59). Additionally, Paul de Man, Barbara Johnson, and J.H. Miller have all been instrumental in the development of deconstructive readings of literary texts.

The theory of deconstruction is important because it heavily influenced postmodern philosophy, intellectual thought, and literary criticism. It remains one of the most widely discussed theory in postmodernity."}},"@type":"Question","name":"What is an example of deconstruction?","acceptedAnswer":"@type":"Answer","text":"Deconstruction is a method of literary criticism. Famous literary works are studied using deconstructionism which helps to unearth new meanings from the text. ","@type":"Question","name":"What is the purpose of deconstruction?","acceptedAnswer":"@type":"Answer","text":"Deconstruction seeks to undertake close reading of a text to find meanings in parts of a text that are often overlooked.","@type":"Question","name":"What is the deconstruction theory in literature?","acceptedAnswer":"@type":"Answer","text":"Theory of deconstruction emphasises the lack of a definite or fixed meanings of a text.","@type":"Question","name":"What is deconstruction theory?","acceptedAnswer":"@type":"Answer","text":"Deconstruction is a critical approach that rejects the notion of definite and fixed meanings in any work of art. "]} #ab-fullscreen-popup display: none; Find study contentLearning Materials

Origins of deconstruction can be found in Derrida's books Writing and Difference (1967) and Of Grammatology (1967) and the lecture titled 'Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences' which Derrida gave at Johns Hopkins University in a 1966 symposium.

Structuralism was a broader philosophy and critical approach that emerged in the early 20th century. In literary theory, structuralism focused on the structural and linguistic aspects of a text rather than what it represented.

A sign is the basic unit of communication that refers to anything (word, image, or symbol) that carries a meaning. In structural linguistics, the sign is made of a 'signifier' and a 'signified'.

Metaphysics is a branch of physics that studies the nature of reality and the relationship between different aspects of life, such as knowledge, perception, identity, existence, and time.

Derridean deconstruction is sometimes described as bringing a literary approach to philosophy, a way of reading philosophical texts like literature, using methods of literary analysis. Irrespective of how accurate this view of deconstruction is, Derrida is now a prominent figure in literary analysis and criticism itself.

Bear in mind that the idea of deconstruction itself is open to interpretation, and scholars define it in different ways. In many cases, a definition of deconstruction is an approximation owing to the difficulty of comprehension of Derrida's writing.

Derrida intended the concept of diffrance to demonstrate the limits of phonocentrism. Derrida developed Saussure's concept of sign, only to open up new questions about the way meaning is created and the concept of difference itself. The term diffrance simultaneously refers to the difference and deferral of meaning. In fact, Derrida describes the concept as an infinite series in the chain of signification.

The term diffrance sounds exactly the same in French as diffrence. The two terms are indistinct in speech and can only be differentiated in writing. Thus, Derrida's term diffrance showcases the complexity of the relationship between speech and sound, and the concept of difference Saussurean linguistics is based on.

In every application in arts or culture, deconstruction symbolises the lack of inherent and definite meaning. It is not easy to present examples of deconstruction itself as it can only be presented as an analysis of texts.

Feminism adopted deconstruction to dismantle the cultural assumptions surrounding gender. Feminist writers used it to challenge the dominance and presumed superiority of the masculine. The binary opposition 'man/woman' is now commonly referred to as the gender binary and has been challenged by scholars of gender studies. Feminist literary criticism often uses the deconstructionist approach to analyse literary texts.

Deconstructivism is a form of contemporary architecture that started gaining popularity in the 1990s. Deconstructivist architecture defies conventional architecture to create buildings that disobey the rules of linearity and symmetry. Similar to Derrida's theory, deconstructivist architecture broke away from structuralism in architecture.

In gastronomy, chefs nowadays take a creative approach towards food by deconstructing classic dishes. This involves presenting a dish sometimes as an aggregate of its components based on their interpretation of a dish.

As we already mentioned, Derridean deconstruction created a fissure within the intellectual community. It was subjected to aggressive and hostile attacks from established academics and philosophers. Derrida was accused of being deliberately complex and perplexing. His theory was even criticised as misguiding young intellectuals and students.

Using deconstruction in literary analysis is complex and simple at the same time. When we read something, a poem, for example, we might sometimes be too quick to look at its form and structure. Does it rhyme? What kind of literary devices are used in the poem? What is the subject matter and theme?

When we do a deconstructionist analysis, we look for ideas and meanings that usually fall through the cracks. You read between the lines, knowing that the boundaries are not rigid and there is no one correct interpretation.

This might be a good exercise to help you understand the concept of deconstruction: re-read a book a while after you first read it. Did you notice anything new or come up with a different interpretation?

The theory of deconstruction is important because it heavily influenced postmodern philosophy, intellectual thought, and literary criticism. It remains one of the most widely discussed theory in postmodernity.

Lawyers should be interested in deconstructive techniques for at least three reasons. First, deconstruction provides a method for critiquing existing legal doctrines; in particular, a deconstructive reading can show how arguments offered to support a particular rule undermine themselves, and instead, support an opposite rule. Second, deconstructive techniques can show how doctrinal arguments are informed by and disguise ideological thinking. This can be of value not only to the lawyer who seeks to reform existing institutions, but also to the legal philosopher and the legal historian. Third, deconstructive techniques offer both a new kind of interpretive strategy and a critique of conventional interpretations of legal texts.

Although Derrida is a philosopher, his work has been applied mainly to problems of literary criticism; as a result much of the literature on deconstruction is written by literary critics and scholars.(5) Adapting the work of Derrida and other literary critics to the problems of legal and political thought is not, however, as difficult as might first appear. Derrida is above all interested in the connection (and misconnection) between what we want to say and the signs we use to express our meaning. In short, he is interested in the interpretation of texts, and that is hardly strange territory for lawyers, who spend most of their time trying to understand what other lawyers have said in legal texts. On the other hand, explaining deconstructive practice is no small undertaking. Like many French intellectuals of his day, Derrida was schooled in the continental tradition of philosophy, whose major influences are Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger. None of these philosophers is known for clarity of exposition, and Derrida often does little better than his intellectual predecessors.(6) For this reason, I will attempt to translate his ideas into a form that can be more easily understood by those familiar with the Anglo-American schools of philosophy.

The two deconstructive practices that this Article will address are the inversion of hierarchies and the liberation of the text from the author. I believe these issues have the most relevance to what legal thinkers do when they analyze legal texts. They also have the most relevance to the study of ideology and the social and political theories underlying our legal system.

For Derrida, hierarchies of thought are everywhere. They can be found in the following assertions: A is the rule and B is the exception; A is the general case and B is the special case; A is simple and B is complex; A is normal and B is abnormal; A is self-supporting and B is parasitic upon it; A is present and B is absent; A is immediately perceived and B is inferred; A is central and B is peripheral; A is true and B is false; A is natural and B is artificial. Indeed, my labelling of these ideas as A and B involves a hierarchical move because the letter A precedes B in the alphabet.

It is true that having reversed this hierarchy, we could then show that difference cannot be a foundational term for metaphysics; difference depends upon identity as much as identity depends upon difference. This outcome is not a refutation of our previous deconstructive reading. The conclusion that neither term is foundational, but that both are mutually dependent upon each other, is precisely the conclusion that Derrida wants us to reach.

Next consider the opposition between serious discourse and non-serious discourse.(17) This opposition also involves the metaphysics of presence, although at first glance the connection is not quite as obvious. When I am speaking seriously, I mean what I say to you, so that my true intentions are immediately present in the meaning of what I say. On the other hand, when I am not being serious, for example, when I am joking, Lying, or reciting lines in a play, I do not really intend what I say. There is a divergence between my true thoughts and intentions and what you hear me saying. Now philosophers naturally are more concerned with serious discourse than non-serious, for serious discourse is, obviously, to be taken seriously. A philosopher would use the paradigm of serious communication as the foundation either for a theory of meaning or for a theory of performative speech acts like promising, warning, or marrying. Nonserious discourse, such as jokes, lies, or dramatic readings, is an aberration, an additional feature of discourse that one would explain in terms of serious discourse after one has worked out the basic theory of serious communication.

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