Hello Beautiful People,
This blog is 204 (Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies) assignment writing on assigned by Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Head of the English Department of Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavsinhji Bhavangar University (MKBU).
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Sem 3
Roll No. 15
PG year 2020-2022
PG Enrollment No. 3069206420200004
Paper Name 204 (Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies)
Topic Name DERRIDA AND DECONSTRUCTION
Submitted to Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English
DERRIDA AND DECONSTRUCTION
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. Brief sketch of Derrida
3. WHAT IS DECONSTRUCTION?
4. What do we understand about 'Deconstruction'?
5. What is the use of deconstruction?
6. EXAMPLE
7. Conclusion
8. Work cited
INTRODUCTION :
"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
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…
Brief Sketch of Derrida :
Language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique, deconstructive criticism aims to show that any text inevitably undermines its own claims to have a determinate meaning, and licences the reader to produce his own meanings out of it by an activity of semantic 'freeplay'
(Derrida, 1978, in Lodge, 1988, p. 108).
Derrida is seen as a 'pioneer' in the field of deconstruction, and his work Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences is marked as the beginning of 'poststructuralism' as a movement. According to Derrida we can never transcend language/culture, and any word/concept contains not only a positive but also its opposite. Western thinking, Derrida says, has been founded upon the 'logic' of binary oppositions, such as mind/body, rational/emotional, freedom/determinism, man/woman , nature/culture and one term is always given a more privileged position than its opposite, in a way typical of ideologies.
This view has been brought into psychology by Billig, and in his view of the nature of ideology one is 'persuaded' by the rhetorical force of 'common-sense' and 'lived' ideology such that the privileging of one side of the dichotomy is seen as 'natural' and 'the way things are'. Yet there is no inherent 'logic' to this 'either/or' dualism, says Derrida, because neither part of the binary opposition can exist without the other since both are interdependent and related:
to give anything an identity, to say what it is, is necessarily also to say what it is not. In this sense, presence contains absence. That is, to say that a quality is present depends upon implying what is absent.
(Burr, 1995, p. 107).
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 the Post-Structuralist neglected the idea of Structuralism and said There is nothing like Constant everything is changing.Deconstruction is the core idea of Jacques Derrida’s philosophy. And Derrida’s philosophical theory on Deconstruction is also the main part in this realm. The word “deconstruction” is always tied with the name Derrida.
What do we understand about 'Deconstruction'?
Deconstruction is an approach to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. ... Deconstruction argues that language, especially in ideal concepts such as truth and justice, is irreducibly complex, unstable, or impossible to determine.
If we can think about Deconstruction it means a new way of thinking. We can not particular emphasis on any words because we can get so many meanings from reading any text as a way of Deconstructive reading. So the meaning of Deconstructive reading is that of finding something new which is very Different to define.
Problematic language :
Example: Duster as car or classroom’s Duster
Example: play as game or As a drama
Example: teacher as woman or as a sir
Example: bat as cricket or as a Insect
What is the use of deconstruction?
So what is the use of deconstruction and how Derrida is important to us.So because of deconstruction examines the internal logic of any given text or discourse it has helped many authors to analyse the contradictions inherent in all schools of thought; and, as such, it has proved revolutionary in political analysis, particularly ideology critiques.
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
(1) Free play of Meanings :
Derrida is using the concept "freeplay" in two different ways in this essay. You'll note that in the beginning paragraphs, Derrida asserts that an "event" in the history of the concept of structure has occurred. Simply put, one way of using "freeplay" constitutes its use before this "event," and the other way constitutes the question of its use after it.
The first use of "freeplay" is freeplay in the context of centered structure. There's another idea I'll have to define. Let's take Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" as our example. Most of us read this play in high school and are subject to all sorts of traditional or accepted interpretations its meaning; and of course, it would be absurd to suggest that "Hamlet" is a play about a giraffe and his long, perilous journey through the plains of Africa. It would be less of a stretch (but probably still not acceptable, at least not without a lot of legwork) to suggest that it's a play about the belief in the supremacy of monarchistic rule.
Derrida has another word for it: play. This second notion of freeplay exists both within and outside of the notion of center. It (the spirit of substitution of center-for-center) conditions a center and makes it possible. Just like the existence of a center made the first, limited freeplay possible, so too here the existence of a broader and more fundamental freeplay that is both absent and present makes possible the existence, repetition and replacement of centers. Derrida's second form of freeplay is one that opens up the chance to create new meanings, new centers themselves; it is not limited by the borders of a center of meaning, but makes the creation of those borders (and new ones) possible.
(2) Decentering the center :
Derrida deconstructs the metaphysics of presence. That is to say that according to Derrida there is no presence or truth apart from language. He seeks to prove that the structurality of the structure does not indicate a presence above its free play of signs. This presence was earlier supposed to be the centre of the structure which was paradoxically thought to be within, and outside this structure, it was truth and within, it was intelligibility.ut Derrida contends that, ‘the centre could not be thought in the form of a being-presence’, and that in any given text, there is only a free play of an infinite number of sign substitutions. A word is explained by another word which is only a word not an existence.
There is no a-textual origin of a text. The author’s plan of a book is a text. His realization of the same book is another text. Its summary is third text. A text kindles a text and there is no truth beyond the text that the text seeks to represent or explain. There is no reality other than textuality. The textuality is the free play of signifiers. There is no signified that is not itself a signifier.
In the words of John Sturrock, Derrida seeks to undermine “a prevailing and generally unconscious ‘idealism’, which asserts that language does not create meanings but reveals them, thereby implying that meanings, pre-exists their expression”. This for Derrida is nonsense. For him here can be no meaning which is not formulated, we cannot reach outside language.
EXAMPLE :
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.
Conclusion :
Let us conclude with M.H.Abram’s observation in ‘How to do things with texts?’: - “Derrida emphasizes that to deconstruct is not to destroy; that his task is to “dismantle the metaphysical and rhetorical structures” operative in a text “not in order to reject or discard them, but to reconstitute them in another way”; - that he puts into question the “search for the signified not annul it, but to understand it within a system to which such a reading is blind.”
Work Cited :
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Jacques Derrida". Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Oct. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacques-Derrida. Accessed 22 October 2021.
Fuchs, Stephan, and Steven Ward. “What Is Deconstruction, and Where and When Does It Take Place? Making Facts in Science, Building Cases in Law.” American Sociological Review, vol. 59, no. 4, [American Sociological Association, Sage Publications, Inc.], 1994, pp. 481–500, https://doi.org/10.2307/2095926.
Hans, James S. “Derrida and Freeplay.” MLN, vol. 94, no. 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979, pp. 809–26, https://doi.org/10.2307/2906302.
NUYEN, A. T. “Derrida’s Deconstruction: Wholeness and Différance.” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vol. 3, no. 1, Penn State University Press, 1989, pp. 26–38, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25669901.
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