Hello Readers!
I am student of the English department MKBU and this blog deal with the Derrida and his Theory Deconstruction.
Difficulty of Defining the Theory of Deconstruction
There are challenges in defining the theory of deconstruction, because Derrida himself who is its originator has never given an authoritative definition of it. For Jing Zhai, the problem is that deconstruction actively criticizes the very language needed to explain it. Language structure is itself a target for deconstruction to argue against.
This shuts down the possibility of defining deconstruction with language. On the other hand, deconstruction refuses an essence, because in Derrida‟s understanding, there is nothing that could be said to be essential to deconstruction in its differential relations with other words. Instead, deconstruction must be understood in context, and consequently cannot be defined unilaterally.
Moreover, Derrida does not consider deconstruction as a movement in the sense that it cannot be abstracted from some specific applications. Neither is it a method, for it is not a set of procedures or techniques to be applied to objects, not a tool that you can apply to something from the outside. In deconstruction, “we do not start from a given method or set of procedures; that is, deconstruction is not method driven research, even though no research can be non-methodological or non-theoretical because our intuitions are informed by theories and interpretative schemas.” Deconstruction is not also an act produced and controlled by a subject; nor is it an operation that is set to work on a text or an institution. Deconstruction is not also an entity, a thing; nor is it univocal or unitary, but it deconstructs itself wherever something takes place.
Derrida’s Definition of Deconstruction
Deconstruction is not to be confused with deconstructionism, which is the constructive attempt to talk about God from within the context of our secular relativistic postmodern culture and in a non-theological initiated by Derrida, deconstruction was inspired by what Heidegger calls the “destruction” of the philosophy's tradition. Derrida sought to apply deconstruction to textual reading in place of Heidegger's destruction, which was referring “to a process of exploring the categories and concepts that tradition has imposed on a word, and the history behind them. In Derrid's view, deconstruction is neither a philosophy, nor a doctrine, nor a method, nor a discipline, but “only what happens if it happens”
Derrid's deconstruction is also founded in the opinion that people usually express their thoughts in terms of binary oppositions, with the claim that each term of a binary opposition always affects the other. And this arises from the theory of language according to which the meaning of a term is determined by its position within the linguistic system, and not by any fixed property of meaning that is indissociably bound to it. A "meaning" is an effect produced by the interrelationships among the terms of a language. Consequently, neither concept in an opposition of contrast has an identity that is entirely independent of its „opposite‟.
Other Definitions
Generally speaking, deconstruction is a critique of the Western philosophical tradition, and is seen as a response and reaction against some important 20th century philosophical movements, among which the structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure. Derrida himself frequently asserts that deconstruction is not a method, but an activity of reading and interpreting literary texts. It is a mode of doing analysis of texts; it shakes up a “text in a way that provokes questions about the borders, the frontiers, the edges, or the limits that have been drawn to mark out its place in the history of concepts.” In this sense, deconstruction is a philosophical theoretical analysis, a critical outlook concerned with the relationship between text and meaning. It is a mode of criticism and analytical inquiry that denotes “the pursuing of the meaning of a text to the point of exposing the supposed contradictions and internal oppositions upon which it is founded.”
Deconstruction is a kind of philosophical framework concerned with reading between the lines it offers an account of what is going on in a text.
Heidegger’s Theory of Destruction
For Heidegger, “destruction” means the transformation of philosophy by focusing on the reality of Being. This implies the transformation of philosophy by re-tracing its history. However, “this destruction does not relate itself towards the past; its criticism is aimed at 'today' and at the prevalent way of treating the history of ontology, whether it is headed towards doxography, towards intellectual history, or towards a history of problems.” To Heidegger, therefore, “destruction is just as far from having the negative sense of shaking off the ontological tradition. We must, on the contrary, stake out the positive possibilities of that tradition, and this always means keeping it within limits.” That is, “to fix its boundaries.” And this destruction of the history of philosophy is based on the transformation of the language and meaning of philosophy by focusing on the reality of “Being.” It is not about destroying or liquidating, but dismantling or putting to one side the merely historical assertions about the history of philosophy. So, destruction consists in putting aside or dismantling merely historical assertions of the history of philosophy and metaphysics. To destroy the traditional content of ancient ontology means to overcome metaphysics by moving beyond philosophy as realism and idealism, which are primarily epistemological, into philosophy as ontology, which involves a primordial grasp of philosophy as the disclosure or unconcealing of Being.
In here we find the Robert Frost Poem The Road not be Taken apply to Derrid's Deconstruction Theory.
Meaning and Difference
"The Road not Taken," is a text which rises over multiple differences; some of them are:
The title itself supplies the major difference in the text. There are two roads: the road not taken and the road taken. This intended ambiguity suggests two meanings:
a- It can mean that the poem is about the road which the speaker did not take.
b- It can also mean that the poem is about the road which the speaker took which was not taken by others. The speaker himself makes of the clause controversial.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both 2
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent into the undergrowth;
Then took the other as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there, Had warn them really about the same,
The difference which controls stanza one, will soon germinate itself in stanza two to stress the ambiguity of meanings. By talking about one road, the poet will lead the readers to speculate on the other; so as to know, from the poet, or even by their own speculation, which one is better, or whether both of them are the same. The poet, of course, could not give the readers a better claim. He does not identify the exact road intended by the speaker. Two hints help readers reach this conclusion. The speaker took the new road because it was "grassy "and" wanted wear." However, the speaker soon hesitates again in last line to make the two roads appear similar.
The Meaning of the text is blurred at this moment of reading. It is clearly hinted in the text that the speaker is taking a new road which was not previously taken by him. The symbolic reading of taking the new road will prepare the reader for another level of meaning which he / she will discover through the continuous process of reading.
Signs and difference
Different signs are used in the text in order to suggest rich meanings. The road itself is a main sign. Roads are used in life and culture to stand for lifeline, its crises and decisions. The road in the text suggests a shift in the way of life for the speaker and shows his decision to make a new turn in it. The moral indication in this sign is clear: man must keep on developing his manner of thinking: he / she must be creative and genuine in action and thinking. One must discover truth by himself.
"The Road not Taken," is a poem which is read with its greatness inside it. It is a great poem because the poet himself is outstanding. Some critics believe that Frost's poetry: "transcends the greatness of American poetry and the greatness of Western Civilization in general." This greatness is clearly revealed in the poem.
The richness of the poem enables it to keep on producing new meanings. Any new reading of the poem will come up with new suggestions. Previous criticism insisted on the cultural side of the poem. It examined the traditional meanings of roads as used symbolically to stand for man's choices in life and his future. The Deconstructive critical approach; however, proves that such rich poems, as our text, will come up with new meanings with each reading. Hence, this study is but a new reading of the poem which reflects one side of its richness.
Thank you!!
