DECONSTRUCTION THEORY

DEFINITION:
➢ Deconstruction is both a literary and a philosophy of language that largely comes from
French writer “Jacques Derrida 1967 Book of Grammatology”.
➢ Deconstruction maintains that all of western philosophy and literature is based on
metaphysics to expose what he saw as paradoxes in western thought.
➢ Deconstruction is an approach to understanding the relationship between text and
meaning.
➢ Deconstruction is a way to understand how something was created, usually things like
art, books, poems or other writings.
➢ Deconstruction perceives that language, ideal concept such as truth and justice, is
irreducibly complex, unstable or impossible to determine.
DECONSTRUCTION MOVEMENT:
❖ It was originated by the philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) who defined the term
variously throughout his career.
❖ Derrida’s original use of the word “deconstruction” was to translation of destruction, a
concept from the work of Martin Heidegger that Derrida sought to apply to textual
reading.
❖ Heidegger’s term referred to a process of exploring the categories’ and concepts that
tradition has imposed on a word and history behind them.
❖ Through deconstruction, Derrida’s aims to eras the boundary between binary opposition
and to do so in such a way that the hierarchy implied by the opposition is thrown into
question.
ACCORDING TO DERRIDA:
▪ According to Derrida, the emphasis of the de-construction is about the plurality of
many. In other words, that may include many meaning that are different from one
another or similar characteristics.
▪ Derrida states that the deconstruct is about the plurality of meaning.
▪ The deconstruction indeed aims to reveal the concealed and other implicit
meaning, not to show up the meanings by the text separating.
▪ The deconstruction is a useful practice in unfolding the concealed meanings and
perceptions in texts, and it is in fact an interpretation style that is sometimes
leading to find out un-expecting meanings.
 FAMOUS WRITERS ASSOCIATED WITH THE
MOVEMENT OF DECONSTRUTION:
I. Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)
II. Paul de Man (1919-1983)
III. Jonathan Culler
IV. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
V. Peggy Kamuf
VI. Philip Lacoue-Labarthe (1940-2007)
VII. Christopher Norris
VIII. Werner Hamacher (1948-2017)
IX. Samuel Weber
X. J. Hillis Miller (1928-2021)
XI. Gregory Jones-Katz
CONCEPT RELATED TO DECONSTRUCTION:
1) LOGOCENTRISM:
Logocentrism always give priority to logos, to reason, to truth. Logocentrism seeks to
maintain the sign as bound to the voice and the voice bound to the “presence”.
Logocentrism is always known as ‘a metaphysics of presence’.
According to Derrida’s logocentrism theory –speech is a kind of presence’ and
‘writing is a ‘kind of absence’ because writing is not present.
Logocentrism is motivated by a desire for transcendental signifier.
2) ARCH WRITING:
It is the notion of writing which insist the breach that the written introduced what is
intended to conveyed and what is actually conveyed.
Arch writing is a form of language which is unhindered by the difference between
speech and writing.
Arch-writing makes possible vulgar writing through its dissimilation; arch writing
cannot be an object of science; it is irreducible to presence.
3) APORIA:
Aporia is a kind of impasse or paradox. Aporia can be seen in the form of either a
statement or a question and can be used in both spoken language as well as literary
device.
Aporia can be used to produce rhetorical effect. Aporia is form of the figure of speech
in within the English language, which can be used to express doubt surrounding a
question or statement.
 e.g.: In William Shakespeare’s play, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ we see an example of aporia
in the question “What is a name?”

4) DIFFERANCE:
• The term ‘differance’ describe the origin of presence and absence.
• ‘Differance is misspelling of ‘difference’. Difference is a key concept of philosophy that
means one entity is distinguished from another.
• The misspelling of ‘differance’ highlights that it’s written form is not heard and it serves
to further subvert the traditional privileging of speech over writing.
• ‘Differance’ is also the hinge between ‘speech’ and ‘writing’.
• In the French root verb ‘differ’ means both ‘co defer’ and ‘co differ’.

5)TRANSCENDETAL SIGNIFIED:
A signified is not an independent entity but the product of the interplay of a number of signifiers.
Transcendental signifiers would be one that escapes display of signifiers and has a privileged
existence. “Transcendent” is used as that which goes beyond or is independent of the play of
signifiers which produce other signified.

CRITICISM:
Even though the critical law theorists state that there some problems in the deconstruction, they
discussed adding three approaches.

Firstly: The deconstruction claims that the meaning is naturally inconsistent and according to the
meaning is flexible.

Secondly: The deconstruction considers the language as a fluid phenomenon which supports
many notions of social structure, can draw the meaning anywhere.

Thirdly and Finally: The deconstruction may sometimes prove texts as it aims to find out the
meaning under the text. In this sense, the deconstruction which assumes the meaning itself to
understand the meaning, rather than text.

According to Feminist Theories: Like critical theorists, the feminists’ theorists have also
discussed the deconstruction which assumes that they have benefited from the deconstruction in
feminist theories.

Because, according to feminist theories; the pressure and alienation over female and felinity
phenomena involved in text can be revealed by analyzing the meaning when the arguments are
handled via the deconstruction.
Balkin Critics said: It is composed of a game of signifiers that are stuck in the language and
accused by the claim that, “it preludes person from maintaining a politic and ethical attitude.”

Derrida Stated: Derrida stated that he used the deconstruction to translate and put forward it
with the necessity of distorting, but not the destructing the structure of meaning or text to
understand it. According to Derrida meaning changes:

EXAMPLE: ‘Difference’ which means “difference” ‘alterity’ in French has been produced by
the verb ‘differ’.

The verb ‘differ’ has double and different meanings like “to make different” and “to postpone”.
Yet, according to Derrida, the afore-mentioned verb only expresses to be different. In this case,
Derrida changes the ‘e’ in the ‘difference’ into “a’ and makes the word ‘differance’ which
meaning both to make different and to postpone.

We can say that Derrida is hereby separating the meaning, not the word, via deconstruction.

CONCLUSION: We can say that deconstruction is a method that tries to bring up the
meaning by dividing the language or text. Therefore, Derrida states that the deconstruction is a
kind of reading. We cannot see the meaning as it is postponed, but we can stop being blind and
we can reveal postponed, different meaning and perceptions by deconstruction the text or the
language. Because according to the postmodernist thought, there is no unique meaning as there is
no unique reality. The meaning and perception might be different for everyone. It can be possible
by deconstructing the text or the language.