Tabassum Sheikh

EP19591035

LTC 612

In his Essay Derrida showcase the limits of structuralism. He comments on what the

structure is and explains the idea of “structurality of structure” i.e the politics of

structure. This Essay identifies a tendency of philosophers to denounce each other.

For instance, Ferdinand De’ Saussure denounced the concept of earlier theorist, Freud

denounces the ideas of Saussurian concept and so on. Derrida tries to denounce all

sorts of philosophies which have been established earlier. The objective of the essay is

to break the structural effect, to show textual disunity and to present the philosophy

without concept and orientation.

      Derrida introduces the idea of the interpretation of interpretations because the

interpretation of the same text varies from the cultural and social background. From

higher interpretation one leads to another interpretation and another one and it never

ends. Here one can understand the idea of deconstruction that reading a text is not to

interpret the writer’s thought but critical reading is to produce the new text completely

which is assumed to remain absent while being written. Hence, the reading has to be

deconstructive rather than reconstructive. When a reader is reading a text he is reading

a new text because he has given a new meaning to the text and breaks all kinds of

structures as he had a different experience of words and signs in his own life. This is

what he states that there is no doubling commentary, a critical reading must go for

“redoubling commentary”. The deconstructive reading uncovers the unconscious

rather than the conscious dimension of the text.

          Derrida begins his text with the reference of the “event“ which is some kind of

“rupture” or break. By event, he means a major shift or changes brought in the world
of criticism by different kind of philosophers who were producing a new kind of

structure, new kind of thoughts in the world of criticism. In other words, this is the

moment when structuralism pointed out that language was indeed a structure when it

became possible to think about the idea of the structure itself, and how every system--

whether language or philosophy itself--had a structure. This event involves changes in

structuralism and this event is also rising a question that if there is a structure then

what is the structurality of the structure.

         Now here the question arises that how “the structurality of a structure been

limited before the ‘event’? The answer is that before this deconstructive theory all the

theories have their structures depend upon one “centre”. Structuralist believes that

there is one centre around which the meaning revolves. Derrida chooses to call the

centre as a transcendental signifier. According to him, the centre is not the centre.

Because centre changes its meaning with the place, time, culture etc. The centre is the

part of the structure but it remains in the outskirt of the structure. 

The centre, while it holds the whole structure together, limits the movement of the

elements in the structure--this movement is what Derrida calls "play. In the absence of

centre, play finally had its chance. When one removes the centre out of the meaning

of the word, a lot of the meaning comes into play. Hence when words lose its centre a

discourse starts to happen.

Derrida elaborates that in the history of structures one centre gets replaced by another.

For instance, Elizabethan period got replaced by metaphysical then there was new

classicist then there were again romantic revival, hence one structure is completely

broken or “ruptured” and centre shift its self and different structures pop up. 

So defining the event that leads to disruption of the structure, Derrida discusses the

concept of “rupture”.                   
 This theory of deconstruction gives rise to the new concepts of redoubling and

rupture which is followed by the emergence of new ideas and interpretations.

Freedom of play will produce a new coinage and hence help in bringing out unlimited

meanings of different signs.