Deconstructive Perspectives

What is Deconstruction?

A RADICAL approach to reading. This Literary Criticism is NOT

FULLY DEVELOPED! The founder is Jacques Derrida Explained as a strategy “Rules

for… Reading Interpretation Writing

History of Deconstruction

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and Frederik Nietzsches (1844-1900) were pioneers in Deconstruction.

They began to question the objective truth of language.

This time is also known as Poststructuralist, it came after Structuralism.

Binary Oppositions The most important

part of Deconstruction.

This type of criticism looks at the binary oppositions that are NOT in the story.

There is a dominant and a non-dominant section of each.

DeconstructionistsAnother Type of Structuralist

Look for opposition in literary works.

Look for other kinds of texts such as: Films, Advertisements Social institutions

SchoolsHospitals

EMPHASIZING DIFFERENCES

Black/White Light/Dark

Young/Old Male/Female Alive/Dead Near/Far Good/EvilSight/Blindness Masked/Unmasked Animate/Inanimate

Past/Present Construct/Deconstruct Hope/Despair Lost/Found Whole/Part

Deconstruction Differs from Structuralism:

They believe there are always things that need to be called into question about a text. They need to be: Subverted Undermined Challenged

Deconstructionists believe:

Language is irretrievably self-contradictory and self-destroying.

Literary works mean more than the author is aware of.

Their meanings are as unstable as the language in which they are constructed.

The work is always more than the surface.

To explain, they use terms such as:

UnmaskingUnravelingRecoveringSuppressionContradiction

Playing with Language

It could be that there is a word that has a different meaning.

It could be that the absence of a word can have a double meaning.

The EXPLICIT meaning may be hidden behind an “obvious” meaning and the IMPLICT meaning is suppressed.

Impact of Deconstruction

Takes away from the text because you look for what is not there.

Makes literature seem like “word play” (Dobie).

Humanists view it as a “wedge between life and literature” (Dobie).

Looks for the Ideologies in our language.

Poem Deconstruction-- Snow

Snow by Frederick Siedel

Snow is what it doesIt falls and it stays and it

goes.It melts and it is here

somewhere.We all will get there.

Source: Poetry (September, 2012)

Look at the Symbolism of snow to extract the opposite: Cold White WinterUsually symbolizing death so the opposite could be life.This poem could be talking about the Rebirth of humans in Religion.

Poem Deconstruction: Six Lines for Louis Brogan

Six Lines for Louis BoganBy: Michael Collier

All that has tamed me, I have learned to love.

and lost that wildness that was once beloved

All that was loved I’ve learned to tame and lost the beloved that once

was wild.

All that is wild is tamed by love---and the beloved (wildness) that

once was loved.

This poem almost deconstructs itself.Notice that there are 2 parts to each sentence, making 4 in each line.This poem tells of each opposite in itself.TamedLoveWildnessBeloved

Work Cited

DiYanni, Robert, Literature: Reading Fiction,

Poetry and Drama. McGraw Hill, 2007, print.

Dobie, Anne B., Theory Into Practice,

Wadsworth, Centage Learning, 2012, print.