PostStructuralism Deconstruction Theory and Practice Outline Q A

Post-Structuralism: Deconstruction Theory and Practice

Outline -- Q & A -- Jacque Derrida: 1. Prologue: Instability of Meaning 2. Writing as Différance 3. Transcendental Signified and Binarism 4. Deconstruction: Literary Practice 5. Derrida in Context: structuralism, Foucault, etc. Assignments

Q&A 1. What is Différance? What is Transcendental Signified? 2. How is Western Metaphysics challenged? 3. How do we do deconstruction in literary criticism? Is deconstruction similar to destruction?

Q&A Is deconstruction similar to destruction? Literary Deconstruction: --show the hidden gaps in a text’s meaning. Textual unity -- Reverse the “hierarchical” binaries, and allow the latter to supplement the formers. -- de-stabilize, de-center, but not destroy.

Which of the following statements are not ambiguous? • I am 40 years old. • The Republic of China was born on Oct. 10, 1911. • I love you till the end of the world. • 多吃蔬菜� 有益健康。 • 中國人生性刻苦耐勞。 • 你要做和事佬� 真是吹縐一池春水。 • The experience of the earthquake yesterday was quite uncanny.

Which of the following statements are not ambiguous? • I am 40 years old. Who is this “I”? • The Republic of China was born on Oct. 10, 1911. born? • I love you till the end of the world (Apocalypse Now現代啟示錄) love? • 多吃蔬菜� 有益健康。 insecticide? Vegi with blue cheese? • 中國人生性刻苦耐勞。 中國人？

Paradigmatic/Selection : Language/Literature as an enclosed system with two Axes Syntagmatic/Combination (narrative structure: roles + actions); metonymy Thematic structure: Motifs, mythemes, metaphors, etc.

中國人生性刻苦耐勞。 Paradigmatic/Selection : Language/Literature as an enclosed system with two Axes + more stereotypical descriptions, or a father’s advice to his son, etc. Syntagmatic/Combination －中國人� 華人 Chinaman －刻苦耐勞／現實 ／斤斤計較／不懂 得人生樂趣

Why is language ambiguous? • Why are meanings undecidable & slippery? 1. Polysemy: Traces of other signs, other meanings. (e. g. national “birthday”; 干卿底事; the uncanny) 2. Multiple Context; Reference Undecidable. (e. g. “The end of the world” ) 3. Meaning is not “present” in language; it happens “in between” signifiers. (e. g. 十八層公寓) 4. (intention and the unconscious)

Freud’s “the Uncanny” • = unheimlich, both “homely” and “unhomely”; or both familiar and strange. • According to Freud's description, the uncanny "derives its terror not from something externally alien or unknown but--on the contrary--from something strangely familiar which defeats our efforts to separate ourselves from it" (Morris; source). • e. g. the Gothic tradition, nightmare, castration fear.

“Spacing”- • Movement from one Signifier to another 十八層公寓— by 相聲瓦社 -- polysemy: cultural connotations of 十 八層地獄, 很持久� etc. -- spacing: Meaning changed when the context is further revealed. Comic effects: old traces vs. newly defined meanings. The traces of the old meanings are both present and absent.

Writing and Différance Language a system of difference of Différance. * While structualists had treated binary oppositions as stable terms in a formal structure, Derrida sees them as organized in unstable disequilibrium. because of the presence/absence of traces * Derrida sees the signified’s also in a relation of difference, and they are turned into signifiers floating signifiers. (Textbook: p. 123; 28)

Writing and Différance (2) Différance: • To differ; A sign is defined by its binary opposition to another sign. 2. To defer. The signifier (black) that is distinguished from the other one (white) is not completely erased; it is only deferred, bracketed or merely “put under erasure. ” It can subvert the fixed meaning of the sign.

Writing and Différance The chain of signification: (1) symbolization or mythologizing Signifier 1 (rose) Signified 1 (flower) Signified 2 (rose=love) (love) Signified 3 (rose= woman in love) Signified 4 (rose = weak, vain & dependent woman in love)

Writing and Différance: chain of signification (1) 1. Signifier Signified 2 Asian People Signified 3 Yellow Other Skin colors White Americans Exotic (Evil or Weak) Other Racial Features What they did White The other Americans White Man’s Burden Innocent, Strong and Civilized Manifest Destiny God

Writing and Différance: Chain of Signification (2) Re-contextualization; traces kept. e. g. 1. Pharmakon: 1). poison, 2). Pharmacy 2. 〈幌馬車之歌〉; 吹皺一池春水 3. Creole; “Madame Butterfly” in M. Butterfly and in the characters of Song first and then Gallimard; the other parodies.

Question • Do you agree that meaning is always uncertain and slippery? What does Derrida’s views of language shed light on our communication?

The Transcendental Signified and Binaries 1. The “unmoved mover” e. g. God (transcendental signified) The Bible (transcendental signifier) 1. (Textbook: p. 124) source/closure of meaning and center of existence. e. g. being, unity, truth, the good, reason, progress, identity, continuity, meaning, subjectivity, authenticity, etc. = foundations

The Transcendental Signified and Binaries They are the upper terms in hierarchical binaries: e. g. Man Light Reason Culture The Public; West, etc. Woman Dark- Emotion Nature ness The Private; East, etc.

Critique of Metaphysics: logocentrism, & phallogocentrism • Traditional binaries are hierarchical. Should be reversed or questioned. • Logocentrism: Logo as center, source, or founding presence of knowledge and human beings. • Phallogocentrism: Man/Woman= sun/moon, reason/emotion, Subject/Object, etc.

Ways of Questioning the Hierarchical Binaries 1. The two terms are actually mutually determinant. e. g. The West has to define itself by having/rejecting an “Other” which is different. 2. The weak term is not really weak. 3. Mutually implicated: One term implies its opposite term. examples

Deconstruction: practices (textbook p. 131) 1. Open texts A text that deconstructs its own unity or “author. ” (examples; also M. Butterfly, its ending) 2. Reverse the text’s binaries or expose its undecidability or multiple meanings (example M. Butterfly Madame Butterfly; another); 3. Study the process of signification of a sign or a text and find out what it tries to erase. (e. g. Scarlet Letter; Barthesian studies of commercials)

Deconstruction: practices (2) 4. Find where the text differs from itself. (critical difference) ambiguity and undecidability (example) 5. Radical contextualization to find out its intertextual references and thus undecidability of meanings.

〈我把一條河給弄丟了〉 Reasons for the Disappearance of the river: -- My departure; growth -- The cartographer; urban development -- The river itself; Nature is betrayed and then changes itself; -- “Nobody’s fault. ” -- “是童年/把我記錯”-- Why?

〈我把一條河給弄丟了〉 The original hierarchy subverted by the last line River. Childhoodpersonified River. Mapped; unchanged I? My growth; I Human error; Childhood’s Urban memory? development wrong

Deconstruction of Binary Opposition: Example The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Society vs. Nature, with Huck in between Nature Jim (River) H: “Then I’ll go "light out to hell. ” for the Territory" H: doubt "born again" as Tom ; use Society and (towns) practical T’s intricate jokes plan to rescue Jim

Undecidability: example 1 Billy Budd: Billy Budd (a young sailor), Claggart (master-at-arms), Vere (the captain). A. Billy Budd innocent) vs. Claggart (evil) Vere responsible and just Allows an innocent man to be hanged. B. Claggart accuses B of planning mutiny. B’s blow B killer vs. C victim

Undecidability: example 2 A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. <Gap> No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees. (William Wordsworth )

Undecidability: example 2 “A slumber did my spirit seal” -- Contradictions between past life the human fear present death the cosmic peacefulness and regularity Gap: What happened in between the present and the past? Whose peacefulness is it? Whose death and when?

Derridian Deconstruction in Context 1. Anti-Foundationalist & de-centering; 2. Like New Critics, deconstructionists read closely to find out the contradictions and gaps in a text, but without reconstructing them back to a unity. 3. Like Foucault, D thinks that we are in language and are conditioned by its structure, polysemy and fluidity.

Derridian Deconstruction in Context (2) 4. Other usages of “différance”: desired object in unattainable, constantly deferred and replaced; colonial mimicry disseminate/de-center colonial authority. 5. “différance” and temporary closure.

Assignments 1. "The Blind Man" 2. Review “The Purloined Letter” 3. Review the whole unit and bring with you at least one question.