1. What is Deconstruction?

It is a radical approach to reading

This literary criticism is not fully developed.
The founder of deconstruction is Jacques Derrida
Explained as a strategy Rules for reading, interpretation and writing.

History of Deconstruction
Rene Descartes (1596- 1650) and Fredrick Nietzsche (1844-1900)
were pioneers in deconstruction.
They began to question the objective truth of language
. This is also known as Poststructuralist, this criticism came after structuralism.

Structuralism
This is the prelude to Deconstruction
It is a science that seeks to understand how a system works, In this case, Language.
The structure of language comes from the human mind.
. Ferdinand de Saussure
Looked at language Diachronically.
He traced words over time looking for the changes in sounds and meanings.

Rules of Language
These rules of language were developed by Ferdinand de Saussure.
Langue - Language is made of a set of rules, known as this.
Parole - General rules of language applied by members of a specific community.
Signs He depicted language as a set of signs, that came in two parts the Signifier and
the Signified

Signified and Signifier in Deconstruction

Signifier The written and sound construction that makes up a word
Signified The meaning of the word.
Deconstruction looks at the ambiguities in signifiers, and states that there can be many
different signified meanings for a single signifier

Binary Oppositions
The most important partof Deconstruction. This literary criticism uses Binary Oppositions to
look at what is not in a story
Of the two parts of binary oppositions, There is a dominant and a oppressed

Binary OppositionsThe most important partof Deconstruction.This literary criticism usesBinary

Oppositions tolook at what is not in astory.Of the two parts of binaryoppositions, There is adominant
and a oppressedor non-dominantor non-dominant

Impact of Deconstruction
Takes away from the text because you are looking for whats not there.
Makes literature seem likeWord Play(Dobie)Humanists view it as a wedge between life
and literature(Dobie)Looks for the Ideologies that are in our language.

Deconstruction In Practice
In deconstruction the signified and the signifier are unstable, and can take on multiple
meanings.
We live in a logo centric world We want to believe that everything is grounded.
In Deconstruction, this is the opposite of the logocentric view.

Deconstructive Analysis
In a Deconstructive analysis you are looking to reverse the dominant and non-dominant
binary oppositions.
Giving the privileged status to the oppressed of the two Binary opposites.Tries to find blind
spots in the literature.
Derrida derived this method because By deconstructing constraints, he tried to open new
ways of thinking and knowing(Dobie)