Hello Monks..
I am Riddhi Bhatt, Student of English Department, MKBU.Today I came with some interesting blog writing. Yes, this is my thinking activity on Derrida and Deconstruction and assigned by Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Head of the English Department of Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU).As a part of the syllabus, students of the English department are learning the paper ‘Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies (paper-204)’.
Whenever I am writing this blog and also these things , I have one question in my mind that why this Sunday's reading task and thinking activity are all given by our professor. Answer is that this is not compulsory for every student but necessary for all literature students who studied for masters. This task gives us a new sense to see how the world is actually. Ok friends, now we talk about today's topic…
Please visit the blog link below for detailed videos and reading resources of Derrida and Deconstruction by Dr. Dilip Barad CLICK HERE..
DERRIDA AND DECONSTRUCTION :
When we read Derrida and Deconstruction some questions are in our mind that Who is Derrida ? What is Deconstruction ? Why is Deconstruction very important to understand literature ?.So now we talk about all these questions and easily understand and solve answers.Lets start…
"If this work seems so threatening,
this is because it isn't simply eccentric or strange,
but competent, rigorously argued, and carrying conviction."
- Jacques Derrida
WHAT IS DECONSTRUCTION? :
*According to M.H.Abraham’s ‘A Glossary of Literary Terms’...
“Deconstruction”, a applied in the criticism of literature,designes a theory and practice of reading that questions and claims to “subvert” or “undermine” the assumption that the system of language is based on grounds that are adequate to establish the boundaries, the coherence or unity,and the determinate meaning of literary text.Typically, a deconstructive reading sets out to show that conflicting forces within the text itself serve to dissipate the seeming definiteness of its structure and meanings into an indefinite array of incompatible and undecidable possibilities.
*According to Britannica…
Deconstruction, a form of philosophical and literary analysis, derived mainly from work begun in the 1960s by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, that questions the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or “oppositions,” in Western philosophy through a close examination of the language and logic of philosophical and literary texts.
Derrida’s theory of deconstruction is never about breaking the foundation but it’s all about inquiring into the foundation. Thus, back-bone of deconstruction is,
“How we see is, what we see.”
Deconstruction is a reaction against Structuralism. Structuralists strongly believed that everything has some kind of similar structure which is fixed and absolute. But Post-Structuralist neglected the idea of Structuralism and said There is nothing like Constant everything is changing.
- The Principles Of Derrida's Deconstruction :
(I) Differance , trace, and the play of linguistic signifiers
(ii) Derrida’s deconstruction of speech over writing
(iii) What Deconstruction is not/ the limits of deconstruction
(iv) Deconstruction and aporetic thinking
(v) Ethical-political responsibilities of Deconstruction
(vi) Deconstruction and Hermeneutics
- Deconstruction and its application :
(1) Free play of Meanings
(2) Decentering the center
(3) DifferAnce
(4) Metaphysics of Presence
(5) Binary oppositions
EXAMPLE :
1. We can find examples of Deconstruction in many films, texts, advertisements etc. Here I want to give one example from a one Guajarati play whose title is 'Ba E Mari Boundary'.
Title : Baa Ae Mari Boundary
Genre : Gujarati Comedy & Satirical Play
Cast: Padmarani,Sanas Vyas
Director: Vipul Mehta
Synopsis:
BAA E MARI BOUNDARY is a social satirical comedy with its main protagonist being Bharti Bhatia, an old and a lonely woman whose status in her disturbed and strained family is nothing more than that of a piece of furniture. The treatment meted out to her is either full of humiliation or that of indifference.
It is feminist Guajarati play in which the director wants to show the power of Indian woman. In this play all the actions and dialogues are suitable in a particular situation . In the starting scene the director shows the weakness of Bharati Bhatia (Padmarani), who serves 24 hour for family but in return nothing she gets. She was scolded all the time by her husband, her daughter, and her son, also her daughter in law . No one in her family shows respect towards her. And somehow she also accepts all her plight and never rebels against it. She never thought that she could raise her voice in front of her husband. Then there is the entry of Bharati’s grandson.So when her grandson arrives to India from America and persuade her to try modelling for commercials.To everyone shocks,Bhrati turns into a supermodel and an overnight celebrity.The rest of the play is about how Bharati uses her new found confidence and celebrity status to re consolidate her position in the family and to bring her family closer.
“Deconstruction is also nothing but the inquiry of concealing truth.”
Now let’s try to put these arguments valid with the support of Derrida’s theory of deconstruction.
So this play,to show the power of women, then why does it require a male character as a support to raise her position in family, in society?.Still there is some gap which must be filled. If a woman is strong enough, then she will never need any type of support from men. She can fight for her status in society, she can change herself and raise her voice against violence. But it does not happen in the play. Bharati’s grandson and her childhood friend helped her to become a celebrity.Only after the arrival of her grandson, her situation improved. Otherwise she blindly accepts her fate without arguing. The moral of this play cannot be justified because, still we can see the power of patriarchy in this play.Whatever mistakes her husband did in this play, she (Bharati Bhatia) forgets very quickly and again started obeying her husband. So visibly we can see the happy ending, but invisibly there is something lacking. Firstly her husband orders her in a bitter or cruel way, and lastly in a sugar coated way. The theme of obeying is always there. In the last scene also Bharati goes to London for shooting and her husband also goes with her. And they both said that ‘Haaji Haaji karta karta rakhsu ekmek ne raaj
2. Here I want to give one example from hindi movie whose title SHERNI...
Title : Sherni
Director : Amit V. Masurkar
Screenplay & Story by : Aastha Tikoo
Cast : Vidya Balan,Sharat Saxena, Vijay Raaz, Ila Arun, Brijendra Kala, Neeraj Kabi
Genre : Indian Hindi-language action thriller film
About storyline :
The film deals with the subjects like human–wildlife conflict and wildlife conservation.The title of the film is a bit of a misnomer, as in Hindi sherni properly refers to a lioness, while the formal word for a tigress is baghin.Though the word sherni is also frequently used to refer to tigresses.The man vs. animal conflict can be narrated in several ways. The deep, dark jungle can be romanticised and turned into a battlefield for a heroic tale of a saviour standing against the many stakeholders who threaten to tilt the balance of the fragile ecosystem. Or it can be viewed through a realistic lens that appears deceptively simple, like director Amit Masurkar does in Sherni. The title refers to a man-eating tigress on the prowl and also alludes to the divisional forest officer Vidya Vincent (Vidya Balan). She isn’t an archetypal screen heroine who roars her way out of murky waters, but is understated and determined to navigate the mundaneness of her government job to assert herself.
When The Indian Express took interview of Amit Masukar ( director of Newton and Sherni). So he said that ...
"It was the core philosophy that humans are a part of nature, not separate. Conservation is not a hero-driven process but it is something that requires an entire community to come together and put in a lot of effort and also share knowledge in order to get things done. And this has to be continuous.
The reason we chose the tiger is because it is at the top of the food chain in the jungle. To save the tiger, you end up saving the entire jungle and with that the entire ecosystem. All these factors contributed in me getting interested in the subject."
“Sher hain to jungle hai, jungle hain to baarish hain,
baarish hain to paani hain aur paani hai toh hum hain.”
(these words by a ‘Forest Friend’, trained by Hassan Noorani)
Now let’s try to put these arguments valid with the support of Derrida’s theory of deconstruction.
So this film
Here we can see that once again a woman dies in the village as the terror of tigress grows. So the people of the village are angry and at this time they get angry and the forest department vehicle is set on fire and the employee is beaten up by villegers.PK Bhaiya who is a politician takes advantage of this and reaches the forest office.(However, the car was set on fire and beaten by the people of PK Bhaiya and his servants for their own political gain.)
It can also be seen here that, as always, politicians who manipulate such work for their own benefit harm the masses and the innocent masses who do not understand anything support them in all this.So here PK Bhaiya goes to the office and tries to catch Bansal there. Yes, when Bansal runs away to escape, he goes to a room where there are piles of files. This scene was very ironical and we can say director wants to say something. PK Bhaiya threatens Bansal and gives him 2 hours to fix everything. Here in the very first frame, Bansal calls a man in the office to perform a baba or ritual yajna. It was very funny to see that...Bansal doing some rituals with her wife in office. We will be surprised to see that yagna or worship is for tigress.
Vidya and Noorani are very annoyed and angry seeing this which can be seen from their faces. It's describe that the tigress is not caught with all these pooja path , we do some plan should be made quickly and something should be done to catch it.So in this frame they both are look to each other and other like Bansal sab and P K Singh and MLA G K Singh and also Pintubhaiya and all employs they all are believe that do this pooja path and everything will be ok
This satire can be seen in the trailer of the film when Vidya introducing team to her seniors and officers and also planning that how we caught tigress so Pintubhaiya said that
पिंटू भैया : ये सब करने की कोई जरुरत नहीं है मेडम मुझ पे भरोसा रखिये में सबकुछ हैंडल कर लूंगा।
विद्या : क्या प्लान है आपका ?
पिंटू भैया : जी ! प्लान कुछ भी नहीं है गॉड गिफ्ट है सब कुछ इधर है। शेर की आँखों में देखकर में पहचान जाता हूँ की वो आदमखोर है या नहीं ?
विद्या : ओह्ह ! आप आँख में देखकर पहचान जाते है ?
पिंटू भैया : जी हां
विद्या : तो एक काम करते है की हम शेर की कुंडली बनवा लेते है और फिर कुंडली देखकर पता चल जायेगा की वो कब और कहा मिलेगा ? और एकबार शेर मिल गया तो आप उसकी आँख में आँख डाल के बता देना और फिर tranquilization experts वहाँ पहोच जायेंगे !
Here we can say that how irresponsible behavior of Pintu Bhaiaya and many of the characters. which harm the environment. For them their ego is superior. This movie is not only about save wildlife yes ofcouse this is main point or purpose of this stoty .But this movie also describe that how patriarchy society. If we look at Vidhya's character In many ways, Vidya’s world seems isolated, the lone woman in a male dominated department. Yet, her colleagues and peers trying to undermine her is the least of her worries. She may be a woman of few words but it doesn’t take away from the fact that she is determined and intensely passionate about her work.One that is stoked by warring local politicians and made into an election debate for the upcoming polls.Other caracter describe that Bansal’s (Brijendra Kalra) attitude who just wants the problem to disappear into the woods and Ranjan Rajhans (Sharat Saxena), an ally of the politicians who calls himself a conservationist but prides himself on the number of tigers he has hunted. Sherni is a triumph.
Another point.....
The forest is not the only space where Sherni finds harmony in nature. The Christian is a species on the verge of extinction in Bollywood. Up to the end of the 1980s, Christian women were a regular presence in Hindi films, rarely as the leading lady and usually as an ultra-Westernised cabaret dancer or gangster’s moll in a supporting role. In those days, a sexually active Hindu heroine in skimpy clothing was largely deemed unacceptable and Christian women – who were stereotyped as dregs of a permissive foreign culture – were used for both purposes to provide a frisson of electricity to the heterosexual male audience. By the 1990s though, as it became increasingly acceptable to portray Hindu female protagonists as not virginal and not traditionalist, Christians were more or less discarded. Sherni’s heroine is not just Christian, she is a Malayali with a north Indian Hindu husband and comes bearing not a single stereotypical marker this film industry once insisted on associating with Christians.
Her religious and regional identity do not serve any specific purpose either, but are merely an acknowledgement by Aastha Tiku’s screenplay that Indian Christians and Malayalis exist. Just as Indian Muslims exist, and do not have to be vehicles for messaging on secularism; nor do they have to be a means to pander to Islamophobes dominating the public discourse today, as they have been in a small but steady stream of Hindi films in the last half decade. Like Vidya Vincent, Hassan Noorani too just happens to be.
Reference :
1) Derrida and Deconstruction
2) “Derrida Jacques” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 22 Nov. 2006, plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida.
3) Sengupta, Sreeparna. “Sherni.” Https://Timesofindia.Indiatimes.Com/Web-Series/Reviews/Hindi/Sherni/Ottmoviereview/83225422.Cms, 18 July 2021, timesofindia.indiatimes.com/web-series/reviews/hindi/sherni/ottmoviereview/83225422.cms.
4) “Sherni.” Youtube, uploaded by Amazon prime video, 2 June 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2wg-11MWFU.
5)"BAA E MARI BOUNDRY" Youtube, uploaded by magic, 20 May 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmv5g26CWgY
6) “Gujarati Show.” Http://Www.Gujaratishow.Com/2009/05/Baa-Ae-Mari-Boundry-Gujarati-Natak.Html, 2017, www.gujaratishow.com/2009/05/baa-ae-mari-boundry-gujarati-natak.html.
THANK YOU.....
