Theory: The How's and Why's of LiteratureDeconstruction - Part I
At this point in our discussion of literary theory throughout the 20th century (and somewhat beyond in both past and future directions), it becomes necessary to justify some of the choices I have made and the order I have employed and plan to employ when dealing with subsequent theories. You see, most disciplines with a historical bent are allowed the luxury of presenting the various significant items they want to consider in the order in which they occurred. This has many benefits. First, the order you choose is determined in advance, so there are no decisions to be made with regard to what large selections to place where. Second, since one section follows from the next in a logical and causal fashion, knowing what to include is relatively straightforward as well: you include it all, and if you have to skip something for space you need at least to summarize it so that no gaps remain. Certainly selection comes into play with regard to the fine details, and the order of some very specific events can be debated, but in the large strokes which determine how one would discuss the events in question, there is no such ambiguity. If I were discussing American history from 1900 to the present, for example, my section on World War I would come before my section on World War II, and my article set on the depression would occur between the two.
In the case of literary theory, however, things can not be so straightforward as this. Looking first at the order I am employing, it is apparent so far that I have been trying to move chronologically to some degree. The section on the birth of theory obviously begins long, long before the 20th century, and the section on New Criticism begins with an overview of some important 19th century literary theories that led up to New Criticism. Since Russian Formalism began as a near contemporary to New Criticism (though both schools were unaware of each other), and since some of their concerns overlapped (both have been referred to as formalist in their approach), it made sense to include them next. This makes sense especially in light of the fact that both of these formalist groups faded away or were suppressed, and gave way to new approaches. Since Structuralism has direct links to Russian Formalism, becoming the new home of several Russian Formalist scholars, and since Structuralism rang the death knell on New Criticism in the West (thought it was being killed by other forces as well), it made sense to discuss Structuralism next. From here, however, the way onward is not so clear, because many directions make good sense to follow.
Moving chronologically can still work to some degree, but not for long. Already with Structuralism, we have a school that, while no longer dominant, still survives, so that though I often speak of it in the past tense, since its time of dominance was decades ago, it is not a dead theory. The period and theory immediately following Structuralism, what is known, predictably, as Poststructuralism, is a very wide ranging theoretical field that encompasses a large number of theories, including gender studies, Marxism, feminism, cultural studies, and a host of others. Of course, all of these are their own branches of theory, and some of them have histories that predate even New Criticism. Marxism, for example, has been around since the 19th century, and unlike some of the other theories we have discussed, it is still vibrant to this day. Such complex histories and relations do not make for a simple and uncontroversial selection and arrangement, to say the least.
To further complicate the progression of the series, there are several theoretical movements that originated in Structuralism that were vital to its progression. For example, Reader-Response theory and Narratology were both born from Structuralist theorists in a Structuralist setting, and employed Structuralist methods. Both of these sub-theories came to garner their own followers, and so became distinct theoretical schools, although both saw their days of greatest influence at about the same time that Structuralism had risen to its highest point. Of course, unfortunately for the sake of simplicity and fortunately for the sake of literary studies, both theories have remained alive even through the decline of Structuralism. So, do I present these in the context of Structuralism (and therefore next in the series), or do I press on and present something Poststructural?
Or, since I have come to a point somewhere in the mid sixties, is it time to go back and begin to explore the development of Feminism, or Marxism, or Psychoanalysis, since in order to properly understand theory after 1970, all of these are of great importance, and the first two at least become dominant aspects of another powerful movement, the rise of Postcolonial theory and Cultural Studies as juggernauts in not only literary studies, but in the humanities as a whole? Omitting the development of any of these theoretical movements, while in some cases tempting, is not a satisfying solution either, since all the ones I have mentioned are important parts of the literary landscape. Leaving these out would be like skipping the Vietnam War in the American history example I used earlier; it might be easier to leave it out, and perhaps less painful, but it is too obvious and important.
My solution to this dilemma comes in two parts. The first is my plan to divide the largest movements, like Poststructuralism and Cultural Studies, into their component parts. So many theories compose both, and these theories have such different aims, approaches, and beliefs, that this will be a more accurate way of showing the diverse range of opinion within the all-encompassing titles. If you understand all the theories that comprise Cultural Studies on their own, as well as the differences between them, you have a solid understanding of Cultural Studies in all its diversity. Similarly, since there is so much overlap between the monolithic theoretical entities Poststructuralism and Cultural Studies, presenting them one after the other would be an exercise in extreme redundancy, and it is better to let their pieces speak for themselves. So, the first aspect of theory within Poststructuralism I will deal with is Deconstruction; it directly attacks Structuralist, Formalist, and New Critical thought, and forms the backbone of what is to follow after. Next, I will present Marxism, Feminism, and Psychoanalytical theory, all of which are implicated in all that comes after Deconstruction. Next will come Postcolonial theory, which develops later than the previous trio of theories, but combines their premises very powerfully, and becomes the strongest current in contemporary Cultural Studies. Finally, I will explore Reader-Response Criticism and Narratology, as these form links between Structuralism and the Poststructural landscape I will already have explored in Deconstruction, Feminism, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, and Postcolonialism.
The second half of the two part solution I mentioned at the beginning of the last paragraph is a strong disclaimer. With such a myriad of theories which could potentially be discussed, I must omit some, and spend less time on some than others. Any general overview like this one must be somewhat subjective, and I am sure if my expertise was different than it is, the selection of some theories, the order in which I arrange them, and the time I spend on each, would be somewhat different.
Deconstruction holds a special place in my academic heart (if such an organ can even be said to exist), but it is not the kind of place I would reserve for my favorite literary works, my favorite authors, or even my favorite theories and theorists. It is more like the kind of place you might have in your heart for a piece of shrapnel that cut through your ribcage and embedded itself firmly in your left ventricle. It came shockingly quickly, caused a lot of pain, and still hasn't stopped bleeding. Perhaps this is not a glowing recommendation of the theory, but nonetheless I feel it is accurate, and descriptive of the experience many students and even professional academics have with the most difficult and intimidating of literary theories.
At the start of this series on theory I made the claim, which some might consider bold, that literary theory was the most difficult body of knowledge to understand within literary studies. Theory, and even the idea of theory, is enough to scare intelligent students, and to make good writers and academics feel inadequate. If this is true for theory in general, you can imagine what kind of reaction people have to Deconstruction, which is, as I have again boldly stated, the most difficult part of a challenging body of knowledge. Evidence of this is available from many sources, and I have had several experiences which can attest to Deconstruction's terrible difficulty.
The university I was attending at the time offered a course on the subject, which was unusual; theory was usually covered in courses dedicated to covering a range of theories in a survey style. However, the powers that be determined that it would be a good idea, and that it was a challenging and important enough subject that it could fill up a syllabus for an entire course. I had many preconceptions of what the class would be like, based on the bits and pieces of Deconstructive lore I had picked up in my other academic travels. I was under the impression that Deconstruction posited that literary works could not really have meaning, that words don't even mean what you think they do, and that your most cherished ideas about your favorite texts were not only wrong, but they were actually the complete opposite of what you believed they were. Needless to say, as much as I thought I should know more about the subject, I was not looking forward to the class.
There we were, not more than a dozen of us (again, the reputation of the difficulty of the subject had preceded it), sitting nervously around a single large table, hoping against hope that this arcane, esoteric body of knowledge would not be beyond us. Suddenly, the professor entered the room, an armful of photocopies in hand, somewhat flustered, anxious looking, and seeming unsure he was in the right school, let alone the right room. He began speaking, mumbling almost incomprehensibly in a mild French accent, as he passed around some of the readings for the term. Of course, the syllabus would not actually be distributed at all; the readings were all that were important, and since we were only looking at three authors all term (and only two for any length of time), there was not a lot of planning out which needed to be done. The final grade, we eventually determined, would be based on two assignments, neither of which was very long. The muttering continued, still incomprehensible. Needless to say, the first day didn't really clear up what Deconstruction was for any of us.
As useless as that first class in Deconstruction was, it provided me with some excellent reading, the likes of which I had never seen before. The essay we were assigned to read (in as far as we could decipher from the professor's mumbling rambles), was entitled "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," and was written by one Jacques Derrida, a man I had heard much about but read nothing from at the time. I knew he was French, and I also knew he was the father of Deconstruction, but beyond that my knowledge was severely limited. Being keen to unravel the mysteries contained within the paper sitting before me, I wasted no time beginning to read, and I made a very important discovery which would prove invaluable in all my future reading of Deconstructive texts: they take literally twice as long to read as most other theory texts. If you take about 45 seconds to read a page of a novel, you are likely to take a minute and a half to two minutes to read a page of theory. However, as I looked up at the clock at various intervals, I found that I was only making progress at about half the speed I usually did when reading theory texts. At the time, I hoped it was merely because I was looking at a new body of work with which I was unfamiliar, and that my fluency in its terms would improve over time, allowing me to maintain my usual pace. Fortunately, I did become more fluent as the course went on, but to this day my reading speed of such material is still significantly slower than it is for anything else I read.
It is obvious that reading time is indicative of difficulty, but what is most striking about texts in Deconstruction is that they maintain their challenging nature no matter how many times you read them. I asked a colleague who had just completed a dissertation on Derrida to explain a key Deconstructive concept to me, and he talked in such halting circles that I was only more confused by the end of the conversation that I was before I asked the question. When rereading various essays to refresh myself for this series, I found myself delving into works I had only planned to skim over, since I already understood what they contained. That is, I understood what they contained until I began rereading, at which point I immediately became engrossed in the essays, and began reading in a highly reflective manner, frequently pausing to consider what I had read, and rereading the same passages several times, each time seeing something else which complicated my conception of it. Then, I found myself reading back and forth between essays, like one might do on Wikipedia, sitting there for hours just putting pieces of ideas together and endlessly searching for different conclusions which gave rise to more questions, and so on.
Turning back to my experience in the Deconstruction class, it was soon time to attend the second day, and I was excited. I felt like I had uncovered a lot, and I had many metaphors, analogies, and models in my mind which I had devised to make the work I was reading clearer. I also thought they would make things easier for the other members of the class, and I was looking forward to hearing their own ways of making sense of the material. However, as I quickly learned, such modeling and comparison was not what the course was supposed to be about.
The professor, five minutes late (which would become his custom for the entire course), ambled into the class and handed out some more essays, mumbling something about the secretary and photocopying, and we got to work on the essay we were supposed to read for homework. Being keen at this point, I looked forward to a good discussion of the material with the other members of the class. At this level (it was a graduate course, and I was a Masters student), classes were generally run in a fairly open manner. Straight lectures occupied some classes, but most classes were either composed entirely of guided discussion, or featured a mix of lecture and discussion, usually favoring the latter. Also at this level, for those of you who are not familiar with the university system, reading the material in class was simply not even considered an option; we were expected to have read the material at home on our own time, and most of us went much further, making notes about it and underlining key passages. It was highly embarrassing to have absolutely nothing to say about a topic, so most students condensed a couple of questions/points of interest from their notes in case they were called on to start discussion, or in case they wanted to shift the conversation in a different direction. I had my first point ready and waiting, but this class didn't unfold in any of the ways I mentioned above, which was, to say the least, surprising.
The professor asked us to turn to the first page of the essay, and we did so. He gave about 30 seconds of background on the context of the paper, and then started reading it, mumbling quickly through it aloud, but not loudly by any means. Most of us followed along, but when this reading continued for about a minute, some of us began looking at one other. Anyone who has taught a class in literary studies has from time to time thought of something they wanted to point out in a text, but needed a moment to read through to find the right passage. The process often involves a quick, murmuring read through the text in approximately the right place until the key excerpt is found, at which point the professor's voice takes on an "Ah-Ha!" quality, gets louder and slower, and reads the excerpt proper with due emphasis, followed by an explanation of its significance. Most of us expected that this was what the professor was doing here, and while it is odd to need to do that to begin a class (usually the lead points are clear, and the examples from the text have been carefully marked so the class will begin smoothly), the professor did not seem very well organized, so it seemed to make sense that he would be looking for something early on. However, after a minute, and then after about two minutes, we sensed that something was wrong. Usually, if you haven't found what you are looking for in this time, you realize you have turned to the wrong section, and either switch your focus, or give up on finding the excerpt, content to move on to your next point. Out professor kept going, however, and it wasn't until about minute three that he paused, and repeated a passage he had read, looking up at all of us. Thinking that he had finally found what he was looking for, we all read it again carefully, trying to see its grand significance, but once again, that was not what was expected in this most unusual of classes.
As we were reading the passage over, expecting that the professor was giving us time to review and digest it, as is common practice, he began talking about it...in a way. Usually, when the key passage is found, it is read, possibly repeated, and then either the professor asks a question, he launches into an explanation, or he explains a little and then asks a question. In this case, the professor began by repeating the passage, pausing, and then started to rephrase the passage, only changing the words slightly, and keeping the meaning, as far as any of us could tell, exactly the same. After doing this for a minute or so, and punctuating with a comment like "you see?" or "and that is what he is saying" between repetitions, he plunged right back into the text, continuing from where he left off, mumbling his way through the text.
Needless to say, we didn't quite know what to make of this pedagogical style, and many of us believed that it was all leading to something, that it was all being done in preparation for some grander point, that it was preparatory and introductory work for what we would spend most of the class doing. We were all wrong. The process I outlined above was repeated over the course of the class, and we sat there for hours reading along, underlining the things he said were important, and taking scanty notes, for there was nothing to record that wasn't already in the text. The whole experience reminds me of a movie I had recently gone to see with great expectations. I went, and it started slowly, which I thought was its way of building up to something fantastic. About halfway through, when things had not picked up, the person I was there with suggested we leave, but I, convinced that something was bound to happen to make it all worth while, thought it would be best to wait it out. Three hours later, sleep clutching both of us mercilessly, my mistake became apparent. Nothing had happened, and what I thought was the set up was the body of the film. I felt like I had just wasted 3 hours of my life, and this is precisely how I felt after that class. The build-up was the class, and it never led to anything. Needless to say, I went home unhappy, and determined to change the course of the next class however I could. The prospect of spending a whole semester in a class where we slowly read the assigned texts was just too much to bear.
I spoke with several of the other students after class, many of whom I now knew in an extracurricular as much as an academic sense, and we came to the conclusion that we were not merely imagining the absurdity of the class, since we had all independently come to have the same feelings about it. So, we turned that little meeting into a planning and strategy group, and determined how we would actually force the professor to give us more from the class than another reading of the assigned work. None of us wanted to sabotage the professor or the class; we had taken it because we wanted to (or felt like we had to) learn more about Deconstruction. We decided that questions after the pauses he made would be the best way forward, and so we set off to read the new material, and to prepare questions which would work at what we thought would be the key stopping places.
So, we all came to the next class more prepared than usual, and ready to implement out plan for the good of our minds and souls. After the professor arrived and began his mumbled reading in much the same way he had begun last class, we waited anxiously for the first pause. When it happened, after a little looking around, I waited for what seemed like the end of his "commentary" on the text and posed a question to him, asking if one could think of that point as being something like another idea I had thought of. His immediate response was no. That was it. He looked down and began reading again, before any of us had sufficiently recovered from our surprise to make further comment or to challenge the denial. Apparently, things were not going to be so easy to change as we had imagined they might.
When the next pause arose, a different student had another question, this time not putting forward an analogy or comparison, but simply asking what a particular phrase meant, and what the concept it contained really referred to. He seemed to respond somewhat more positively to this (thought it could just have been wishful thinking on our parts), and then began an explanation...sort of. We all snatched up our pens (which we had got into the habit of abandoning early on in the class), ready to take the first meaningful notes of the course. I remember starting to copy down the ideas that came forth, and then as the explanation went on, and on, and on, I realized that he was not saying anything different than he had been saying in his standard repetitions and rephrasing. He used more of the "do you see?" and "that is what he means" comments than usual, but the content was identical. After taking about five minutes to finish answering, he began reading again. Things were only growing more frustrating, and although I did my best to hide it, I must have been visibly annoyed. The professor, of course, did not notice, and kept reading as if he were sitting alone at home in the comfort of his favorite armchair.
We waited for another opportunity to get in, but the next time he paused was actually to stop for the end of class! It was apparent that he was well aware of what we were trying to do, and that he wanted to prevent it entirely if he could. He seemed determined to mutter his way through the course, letting the ideas, which he must have believed were self-evident, speak for themselves. Of course, we would end up learning something from this experience, but it really invalidated the whole purpose of having a class; after all, we could just get the list of texts and read them ourselves, which would save us time, effort, money, and boundless frustration. A couple of students stopped attending after this class (there was no class participation grade), resigned to the fact that they were not going to be taught anything. Not willing to give in so easily, the rest of us met again, and this time the flavor of the meeting changed from that of a think-tank to a council of war. Clearly, we had underestimated our opponent and the intentionality with which he pursued his chosen course, which seemed designed to keep us as ignorant as possible. However, we were counting on the fact that he too had underestimated his opponents; we would not be going down without a fight!
The change in plans this time was even simpler than last time, but it shifted our approach significantly. When we thought we were dealing with someone who was unintentionally uninviting and who was depriving us of knowledge by accident, a soft approach seemed sufficient to lead him away from this; I have had several professors who, despite their desire to enlighten the class, spent most of it looking down and speaking as if to themselves because of various social inabilities. Once these individuals are prompted, however, they can be very helpful. Since this wasn't the case we had in front of us, we decided on a more aggressive approach. We would use the same "in" as we had planned to last time, the pauses, but since he now appeared to be on to us, we were willing, if there were no pauses for more than ten minutes, to jump in at the ends of paragraphs where natural pauses occur, and to pose questions there. This required some diligent planning, as we had to figure out how quickly he read and where in the text we would be when a break-in would become necessary, but we sorted it out over the space between this class and the next and came to class prepared for battle.
Of course, our assumption that the classes would be run in a predictable and uniform manner was somewhat flawed. When he arrived (again, almost exactly 5 minutes late, which led some of us to believe it was not carelessness but rather careful planning), and he had no essays to hand out to us to read for next day, all of us grew concerned. He announced, in as far as he ever "announced" anything in his low, quick speech, that since we had not finished either of the first two papers in class, we would take the time today to do so, and leave the essay we were supposed to have read for this class go for the next class. Of course, none of us was pleased with this, and many of us raised objections, including the fact that few of us had brought the essays from previous classes. However, it became evident that he had no intention of doing anything other than he suggested, and that he likely didn't even have today's essay prepared to teach, in as far as he ever had anything prepared to teach. He encouraged us to follow along with a neighbor, and so there we sat, fuming, in groups of two and three, once again foiled in our plan to make the class meaningful. We tried to insert questions and voice objections, but with texts that we hadn't looked at in a while (the class was held once a week), we were not in a great position to put up any sort of resistance. We got through the essays, which was a painful process, and resolved to enact our vengeance the following class.
When class began that day, there was a sense of excitement in the air. Having had two weeks to mull over the essay, as well as our responses and objections to it, we were more confident in this material than we had been in any other, and we felt collectively like we could finally wrest some knowledge out of the professor who was guarding it so tenaciously. Fueled by our frustration last time, we were more determined than ever to achieve out goals, and the sense of anticipation was palpable. At 3:05, the professor entered on an excited looking bunch, and although most educators would be pleased at this prospect, his mask of indifference was impenetrable.
The class began as predicted, and he began reading through the essay in the usual manner. No pauses seemed to be coming, despite the fact that he had been reading for over ten minutes. Seeing the way things were, we looked around and began implementing the plan. The exchange that followed was one that I will never forget. I asked the planned question, similar to one I had asked before, and suggested a model that would capture the Deconstructive entity under discussion, and he again responded to my complex suggestion with the simplest and briefest of negative responses. Prepared, I parried with a more detailed expression of how my model mapped onto the key terms, making the analogies explicit and, as I believed, incontrovertibly, obviously, evidently linked to the concept to which I wanted to link them. He again responded with a no, and, flummoxed (not a word I use lightly), I began to sputter a rebuttal, but he stopped me there. I thought that once again my methods were going to be completely ineffective, but as it turns out, he was about to reveal a key secret of deconstruction as a result of my pressing.
The class, having now grown silent, stared at him, waiting for a reply, a real answer to a question, or at least a meaningful statement that went beyond reading and paraphrasing the text. I quote him now, and though the words are not exact, they are close, and definitely capture the meaning of his utterance accurately. "You can't do that. You keep trying to force Deconstruction into your own systems, trying to compare it with other things and make it into a system. That defies what deconstruction is. That is one of the things that Deconstruction tries to resist. You think that by mapping one of these ideas onto ideas and models you already have and know you will understand it. But as soon as you do that, you change what it is. At the heart of Deconstruction is its denial of the kind of identity you are trying to create. You can only understand it on its own terms, and even the idea of understanding is not exact here. You have to live the work. Logic, analogy, and comparison are not sufficient."
We all sat there, most of us with that wide-eyed look that accompanies surprise, and some of us with that further twisting of enthusiasm that animates faces after a revelation. In a flash, I understood the professor, the class, its structure, and even something about Deconstruction. Thinking back to the structure of the class, it occurred to me that the professor was not (or at least not merely) stubborn or socially uncomfortable; he was living Deconstructive principles, and teaching them through his methods. If you can't attempt to understand Deconstructive principles in the light of your existing knowledge, this means that you have to conceive of it as a radically different thing. If you can't really use reason or logic to make it make sense, then any system you attempt to work it into will fall apart, because it is deconstructing systems and systematicity themselves. His style of reading the text and then repeating key passages meant that he was actively trying not to alter the texts; he was living with it, immersing in it, rather than trying to put it in different terms. He could not show us its meaning, because in Deconstruction, you never get to the central, present meaning. It is deferred endlessly, just as each class seemed to endlessly defer any understanding. It was brilliant, and if I thought he had been doing it to teach us something, I would applaud. However, I believe he was doing it unconsciously, as someone who had spent so much of his life thinking in Deconstructive terms that his mind now simply worked that way.
Of course, this was not the last of the discussions about the nature of Deconstruction, even thought the professor likely hoped that it would be. As the class progressed, we began to interrupt with more and more questions, and as the weeks went on, the classes threatened to turn into lively and interesting debates. Of course, this is precisely what the professor did not want to happen, and so at one point he decided that enough was enough. When one of the usual rabble-rousers (of whom I am proud to say I was not one) started speaking, he said to him "Be quiet." We all laughed, thinking it was a bit of a joke or a dig, but when the student smiled and then started to continue, the professor repeated "Be quiet. You are not going to learn anything if you keep that up." Of course, there was no possible response to this, and so the student desisted. This did not keep him, nor the rest of us, from speaking up in the future, but it did ensure that that class maintained a balance between focus on the essays and ideas about the general nature of Deconstruction.
Regardless of what I learned about Deconstruction in that class (which ended up being a surprising amount), I learned what could perhaps be the most important lesson of all for working with the theory (if it can be called that) period. Resistance is futile. The Trekkers among you might appreciate the sentiment more than others, but it is completely applicable to this subject. Almost everyone's first instinct when encountering Deconstruction for the first time is to resist it. Of all the literary theories you will ever encounter, Deconstruction brings out the fight in a person the most. Even if you are a staunch capitalist, you can at least understand the arguments Marxists make, based on the principles they employ and the logic they follow. You will likely not agree that their premises are sound, or that their definitions of the good are correct, but you will be able to follow how they get from the inception of their idea to its goals, and how the practice they recommend would lead one along the path between them. This is because the theories we follow are rooted in logic, in reason, in that most human of capacities that has even been called that which makes us really human. Deconstruction resists the imposition of logic, and states that the entire history of Western metaphysics has valued logic as the path to true meaning, whereas it only ever gives an approximation.
Needless to say, if Deconstruction sees the centrality of logic as an imposition, this flies in the face of far more than merely a given set of political or moral beliefs. It flies in the face of out very epistemology, of the way we come to know and understand. It goes against every fiber of our intellectual beings, and as a result, we cannot help doubting it, trying to expose its holes, trying to tear it down. However, the only way we have of doing this is on the basis of reason, which is linked to the very metaphysical structure that Deconstruction denies. So, in order to understand it, you have to forget all you know, or at least put it aside for a time and engage in the play of language that Deconstruction employs as its central force. Only by embracing and enacting it will you have any hope of learning anything about it. Resist later if you like, but for now, go with the flow.
One I had abandoned, or should I say postponed, my resistance, the class went along much more smoothly. The questions I asked were not met with immediate no's, although more often than not they exposed the times when my resistance had risen to the surface more than I had realized. The true test, of course, would be how I performed on the papers we were expected to write, but this turned out to be another lesson in humility, which exposed more about the problem one encounters when practicing and evaluating Deconstruction, a theory that resists both practice and evaluation by its very nature!
Having resigned myself to the play of the theory, I did my best in my papers to make them as free flowing and uninhibited as possible. I flowed from unexpected word origins to relations between key terms to multilayered puns to outright paradox, all of which are staples of Deconstructive writing. Each time I wrote, however, I did not achieve up to my expectations, and the professor warned me that I should not be trying to do deconstruction, but rather, I should be seeking to talk about it. Again, I was completely baffled. I was trying to live it, trying to let Deconstruction possess me, and when I did, I was reprimanded for not casting my work in a logical, non Deconstructive frame. Again, I felt stymied, but such is the contradictory nature of the subject. I had to be evaluated in some way, and of course the standards for evaluating academic papers are largely uniform across the discipline of literary studies. As a result, my Deconstructive essays were evaluated according to the very principles they contested, and, thinking back, it really couldn't have gone any other way.
So, the class ended, and while no one was happy, this was perhaps part of the lesson. Deconstruction is not the happy-maker, and it will never be. Perhaps Jacques Derrida was amused as he pondered the theory he created, but aside from him, Deconstructionists are humorless people in their academic pursuits, and if you have a party in the future where you have invited one, be sure not to turn the conversation to literary or even political theory. Four hours later, tired and dizzy, you will still be listening to a diatribe about meaning that, especially if you have been drinking, will leave you with a splitting headache in the morning. After the term had wrapped up and I had written my final paper, I fully expected a B+ in the course based on what I had received up to that point. My final essay ended up receiving the same grade as my previous efforts, and yet, inexplicably, I achieved an A in the course. I am not sure what happened, or how, but I spoke to many of the other students, in the class, and most had a similar experience. So, was this another Deconstructive principle being enacted either consciously or not? In the end, after all indications and assumptions suggested that the course would climax in a final, ineffable meaning, differentiating all of us from one another and indelibly stamping us with a definition, a distinction, what we ended up with was another deferral of meaning. Of course, since this was the end of the course, the meaning would be deferred indefinitely, infinitely perhaps, which might have been the finest masterstroke of Deconstructive principles in the whole course.
Thus far in the series, I have striven (which is the correct but seldom used form of the word with an auxiliary verb) to give a general idea about Deconstruction and its basic attitude. I have also tried to illustrate how it is approached in classrooms and how students react to it. Finally, I have tried to ease into the subject as gradually and entertainingly as possible, because, like those who practice it, Deconstruction is a humorless, challenging, irritating pursuit. From this point forward, that humorlessness will come through more powerfully as I begin to delve into its principles and key concepts, and while I will try to keep things somewhat interesting, prepare for slower reading and a lot more thinking. Deconstruction is not for the faint of mind, although, contrary to popular belief, it is not incomprehensible.
Starting at the start, or at least at the big start that the world remembers, Deconstruction burst onto the intellectual and academic landscape in 1966 at Johns Hopkins University. A colloquium was being held, running under the title "The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man." Now, this title might seem incredibly broad and grandiose, but looking at the list of invited speakers, the title was just about right; the colloquium was more like a literary theory all-star game than a regular academic conference. One of the presenters was a relatively unknown philosopher named Jacques Derrida, and because of the scheduling of the talk, as well as the stature of the conference and the growing American interest in European theory, notably Structuralism, his talk was very well attended.
He presented an essay that I have mentioned as the first essay I read in my class on Deconstruction, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences." It obviously reflects the title of the conference, and hits upon the key word "Structure" which was of great interest to the largely American audience. What it seemed to promise, however, and what it ended up delivering were completely different things...almost. You see, Derrida did address Structuralism, but he was one of a small school of European scholars who were reacting to Structuralism's limitations. Structuralism had enough history in Europe that it was nothing novel, and so, as expected, its flaws were beginning to rise to the surface at the beginning of what would be a paradigm shift.
Of course, Structuralism had only appeared very recently in the United States, and this conference was conceived in part to usher it in on a wider, more significant scale. It achieved this end, but at the same time Structuralism saw its official American birth, its death was being simultaneously prophesized. As fascinating and interesting as the North American scholars found Structuralism, it simply could not compare with the critique of Structuralism provided by those like Derrida, and his talk signaled the beginning of what would come to be known as Poststructuralism. This is not to say that Structuralism was laid to rest on that fateful day in 1966, but the signs were clear that a new and different order was on the horizon, and daybreak was not far off. Poststructuralism and Deconstruction became the dominant approaches to literary theory for the next 30 years, and even today their influence is profound.
Theory: The How's and Why's of LiteratureDeconstruction - Part II
What I am about to do, in a way, flies in the face of all my Deconstruction professor "taught" us; however, since there is really no way to teach Deconstruction according to its own principles (more on this later), I do not feel the least bit bad about it. Keep in mind, however, that what I set out is a guide and an approximation. In order to fully appreciate what Deconstruction is all about, it is absolutely imperative that you track down some texts written by Deconstructionists and read them. Many are available online, and if your university's library doesn't have several texts by figures like Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, and J. Hillis Miller, you need to withdraw immediately and go elsewhere. I am not kidding. This would be like attending a medical school where the library had no copies of Gray's Anatomy, which is simply absurd.
To begin to embrace Deconstruction, it is important to understand that paradox is a dominant form of "argument," and that word plays are integral to the "logic" of Deconstruction. To start with a great example from the beginning of "Sign, Structure, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," we can see Derrida talking about the history of Western metaphysics, which is a branch of philosophy regarding being, the nature of reality, and existence in general. Meta come from the Latin, and means beyond, while physics, as we know well from our contemporary use of the word, has to do with physical reality and its properties. So, if metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that goes beyond physics, we can see that it addresses issues on an abstract, fundamental level. Although there are many, many philosophers associated with this tradition, as well as its refutation, Plato's idea of the forms is an excellent example of metaphysical thought.
Plato posited that the things we see and experience in the word around us, as well as the abstract concepts we can never physically see but only think, like justice and beauty, are but specific manifestations that partake in a kind of ideal form of the entity in question. For example, if I look at the table resting beneath the computer I am working on right now, it is evident that this table is not the template for all tables. Therefore, knowing this particular table does not help me to know a table if I see it, for all its diverse characteristics (the number of legs it has, the materials which make it up, the grain of the wood, its height from the floor, its size, and too many other subtle characteristics to mention) combine to make it a very specific entity, not encompassing the essence of table-ness that I have in my mind. Rather, there is an ideal form of the table that allows me to recognize a table when I see one, based on the degree to which the table partakes of the ideal form of the table, which is an abstract entity Plato never explicitly defines as either a real thing that exists in some other plane of existence, or merely a useful idea to represent a general concept. The form of a thing is that thing in its complete perfection, and without the form, the specific instantiation of the thing in question would cease to exist. If this sounds confusing, please brace yourselves, for it is mainly said in preparation for the far more advanced ideas that are to follow.
So, it is apparent that Plato's idea of being, of existence and truth, are all based on the existence of an overwhelming presence that goes beyond mere physical reality and stands somehow above and before it, making it what it is. The forms represent the truth, the true essence of any specific entity, and as a result all outward signs of this truth, this form, are given meaning as a result of their connection to this presence. A specific table is not the essence of table-ness itself, but rather an indication of, or a pointing to, the true form of the table which defines it.
Deconstruction's claim, in Derrida's voice, is that the history of Western philosophy is largely the history of Western metaphysics which begins with Plato and his idea of forms. Although the ideas grow more sophisticated, and the philosophy uses different metaphors for the all-defining, all-important center of reference, like God, or, later, the human subject, they are nonetheless steps along a path that sees the being as defined by presence, presence being defined as the ultimate reality which gives meaning and existence to everything else. Needless to say, Derrida disputed this notion, and argues instead that there is no ultimate presence, no center that structures all and unifies a specific aspect of reality with something above it which acts to make it what it is.
His metaphor regarding structure at the start of the essay we have been returning to time and again is a telling one, and also very useful for instructional purposes, since it uses many of the most common Deconstructive maneuvers. He begins by discussing structure, and the necessity within all structures of a center (thinking of the structure as a circle will help here.) Now, the center of the structure is the thing to which the rest is moored, and which gives it definition, but looking closely, we can see that the center is not even part of the structure. In the case of a circle, the center is the place in the circle that does not even rotate when the rest of the circle rotates, for example. Thus, it is at the center of the structure, defining it, but at the same time it is not really part of the circle. Since it defines the circle, but does not partake in its motions, it is outside and apart from it. So, it is both inside and outside, there and not there, at the same time. It is definitive, but it does not really exist. It is merely a relation, a relation which itself is no presence, but rather an absence. It is the infinitely tiny pin-hole in the middle of the circle, the nothing which both defines and circle and is defined by it, with no existence of its own.
To make things somewhat more clear, let us turn once more to Ferdinand de Saussure, whom Derrida made excellent use of to elaborate some of his Deconstructive ideas. As we read in the series on Structuralism, Saussure was a groundbreaking linguistic theorist in the late 19th and early 20th century who shifted his field (then usually known as philology) from one centered on the historical development of language to one dedicated to the study of language as it exists in the present moment, or at any given time in the past, without regard for historical development. He is a central figure for Structuralism, who based many of their concepts on his work, and who incorporated his linguistic theories into their literary analyses, making the science of signs that Saussure had called for.
In his response to Structuralism, Derrida made explicit reference to the tenets of Structuralist thought, and did a lot of work with Saussure's concepts. Some would accuse him of turning Saussure inside out, while others praised him for showing the outcome of Structuralist thought when taken to its extreme. This, of course, is why Deconstruction is often referred to as the first manifestation of Poststructuralism. Post means after, of course, and so Poststructuralism points to a time after Structuralism most obviously. However, because the term contains the word Structuralism within it, it is evidently still bound up with Structuralism's major ideas, serving as much as a particular way of developing Structuralism as a way of tearing it down.
Saussure made an important distinction between the signifier and the signified; the signifier is the sound or printed word or symbol that points to something outside itself, that gains its meaning from something outside itself. The signified is the thing that it points to, that gives it meaning. This is a neat distinction, and one that allows us to discuss different levels of linguistic meaning. The signifier is the word itself, the sounds, the black marks on the page, which gain their meaning from their connection to the system of language of which they are a part.
Derrida, however, uses Saussure's terminology to a different end, and talks about the absence of the transcendental signified, or that thing which gives all other things meaning, the real thing whose presence is the mooring for all knowledge, truth, and being as we know it. For Derrida, there was nothing standing behind the surface of the language, for if any signifier pointed to anything at all, it was not to a real thing that existed behind language and acted as its essence. Rather, Deconstruction posits that signifiers point to other signifiers, and that the whole process is completely unmotivated in terms of essential truth. We have a strong desire to imagine a being or force which is the ultimate authority, whether we want to make it the ultimate authority over all being (God), or a more limited authority that still governs a given set of human representations or actions. However, Deconstruction denies the existence of the transcendental signified, and, again using Saussure, notes the arbitrary connection between sounds or letters and the things they represent. The word tree, as I have mentioned previously, has nothing tree-like about it. There is no force behind my utterance that somehow links the essence or idea of a tree to my representation of it. It is entirely conventional.
Going even further, Derrida insists that not only is the transcendental signified a metaphysical myth, but that there can ultimately be no signified at all, for this implies a stopping point and insistence on a presence that simply is not there. Let us for example take the word stem. What does this word mean? Taking one meaning, it refers to a part of a tree. Taking a meaning that rises metaphorically from it, it has to do with something moving off from a main direction, as in to stem out from. However, what makes either of these meanings intelligible? Nothing but the fact that they employ sounds or symbols that are set in contrast with the other sounds and symbols of the language. If I add another letter, or change the sound slightly, I can end up with steam. This is a completely different concept, again only defined according to the different sound and symbol used to render it.
This tiny phonetic difference exposes the arbitrariness of sounds and symbols, and their ability to produce meaning only in terms of a system of language. Looking at it from another angle, one can see that each signifier leads us to another signifier or set of signifiers, but never to the ultimate meaning we are searching for, or most often, assume we have found. To define stem, I need to talk about a certain part of a tree or plant. To define tree or plant I have to discuss aspects of those things, which will include growth, leaves, and so on. In searching to nail down a precise meaning, I merely uncover a whole chain of new signifiers, which do not provide me with the stable signified I seek, but rather an infinite chain of signifiers without end. I never get to the center, the core, or the bottom of things because there is no such stable foundation upon which meaning is based. Everything is in relation to everything else, which leaves the center open, and destroys the idea of structure. After all, a structure needs a center or ground of some kind, or at the very least borders which give it definition (which, of course, amounts to the same thing as a center, since any finite, circumscribed structure will have a center). However, because the process of signification is infinite, nothing is there to structure the system.
Looking at this another way, we can say that language, meaning, and even being itself cannot be conceptualized in the way Western metaphysics has done for more than 2000 years. In order to structure a system, to give it grounding or a center, and to make it signify in some way that is not arbitrary, one would need to go outside the system. Only by stepping outside the system in question can one look inside it and make judgments about it in a way that is objective, because otherwise you are deceived into defining the thing using aspects of the thing itself, which can never show anything other than the self-reflexive nature of the system in question. It is impossible to stand outside of being, meaning, and language in order to adopt the appropriate perspective to see them as a complete whole and to envisage their structure. We are trapped within each of these, and as a result, cannot fathom them, much less can we fathom anything outside them, like a transcendental signified, that somehow stands outside them and gives them meaning. Even if we imagine a god, this being can only be known to us in a way circumscribed by the constant mediation of language and meaning we use to understand everything, and so as far as we can ever know, it can only exist within the very systems we have created it to help explain.
The difference between signifier and signified becomes a binary, and as much as Structuralists loved to use binaries to structure and explain the texts and ideas they wanted to explore, the Deconstructionists loved to take these binary oppositions and tear them to pieces, showing that the very tension that motivated their connection was false, and pointing out how their internal logic caused them to cease to exist completely. Signifier and signified begin as opposing concepts in Structuralist terminology, but are quickly reduced to the same thing under Deconstruction.
Signifier and signified can only exist within a system that privileges one element over another in a hierarchical relationship. The signified is supposed to give the signifier meaning, and the signifier is supposed to render the signified in language, to give it presence in verbal utterance. However, because each signified exists only on the same level as its purported signified, and since each signified acts itself as a signifier, the two lose their essential tension. The signified can be seen as the presence that gives meaning to the signifier, and the signifier can be seen as the presence that makes the absent signified appear in language. However, it can equally well be said that the signifier is merely the indication that the signified is not there, and so it underlines an absence rather than making anything present.
Another such binary that has been well explored in Deconstructive circles is that of inside and outside. Taking a relatively simple example this time, let us consider the doorway to a home; now, ask yourself the question of whether this door is outside or inside the house. Ponder this for a moment, and see if either answer makes any more sense to you than the other. On the one hand, the door is a part of the house, and so can be considered inside it. On the other hand, it circumscribes the living area, much like the walls, and so can be considered outside. Taken a third way (or perhaps this counts as both the third and fourth ways), we can see that the door is neither inside nor outside the house. With all of these interesting possibilities vying for our support, I can hear you asking the key question: "What does this have to do with Deconstruction?" The answer is as simple as a refutation of a certain kind of formal logic and reasoning, and a definite refutation of the binary method employed so extensively by the Structuralists.
You see, the binary opposition between outside and inside is a strong one, and these concepts are considered mutually exclusive in formal logic. Because they are opposites, meaning that they have the same value as each other, except that one has not in front of it (inside = not outside: outside = not inside), they are mutually exclusive. Nothing can be something and not be that same something at the same time. Therefore, to be both inside something and outside it simultaneously is a logical contradiction. At the same time, to be neither outside something nor inside it is impossible as well (I am not outside and I am not not outside is logically contradictory). Therefore, this example shows that the binary opposition that the Structuralists tried to form actually does not exist, for the distinction between the outside and the inside is not distinct, not clearly definable, for its absolute value is contradicted by the presence of an entity which confounds all attempts to separate one from the other.
It is obvious that Deconstruction is here working with terms that are not absolute, even though they present them in that way. No philosopher dropped dead from hearing that there could be something that was neither and both inside and outside, but Derrida used it to show the limits of formal logic and especially the limits of the Structural application if it. Deconstruction, and Poststructuralism in general, sought to dismantle the absolutes that had been set up by previous theory and scholarship, and succeeded remarkably well.
There are some terms within different literary, political, and philosophical theories that carry such weight, force, and importance that the theories cannot be approached without knowledge of them. Such a term within a given theory becomes the cornerstone, the idea which dominates all the rest, and to which all the rest bend as needed to accommodate it. Looking at Marxism, jumping ahead to something more of you will find more familiar, we can see that revolution is an absolutely central theme that, while not completely defining of Marxism as a whole, is so important that without it, Marxism could not exist in the way that it does. If we removed the idea of revolution from Marxism, we might have something that could still lead to a socialist or communist worldview, but since its ends would be far different, it would transform into a different theory altogether.
There are a family of terms that define Deconstruction in a similar way, but there is one in particular that, if it were absent, would make Deconstruction a completely different theoretical entity. In fact, I might go so far as to argue that, without it, one could not deconstruct anything at all (or, in their preferred language, we would not be able to point out the inherent instabilities within anything that come out when it deconstructs itself). This term is différance, which will remain in italics (and a foreign language) through the remainder of this series, and indeed, likely wherever you happen to read it. I will usually start by defining a key term when it is presented in a foreign language, and then I will translate it. From there, I will either use the translated version if it is a close match for the translated word, keep the original because there is something about either its sound or meaning that I think conveys the idea better, or I will switch back and forth between the two if it seems appropriate. Then, I will elaborate on the definition, use examples, and generally talk about the term until I am happy I have covered most of its interesting angles.
When it comes to the term différance, however, the options available are limited to a single one right from the outset, and the order I use has to be altered significantly as well. You see, I would normally define the term first, but it is impossible to give a quick, rough definition. Then, I would translate it...but the problem here is, even though it looks French, it is an invented word that actually has no meaning in any home language, technically speaking (although it has obviously come to have a meaning in a great number of languages). Because of all these factors, I will definitely be keeping the term as it is. It has entered our language as such, and, as far as I know, no language that has adopted the term (and there are many) have made any changes to it. It is a unique kind of signifier in literary theory, in a class with such words as catharsis and denouement, only even more obviously literary and difficult. As we have already seen, and will continue to see in our explorations of Deconstruction, you need to leave your usual expectations at the door in order to have any success in grasping concepts that rub against the grain in almost every way you can imagine.
In this discussion of the Deconstructive term différance, it will be necessary to explain a number of other important terms as well, and while I would usually just mention them in passing here in order to cover them in more detail later, in this case that will not suffice. This concept is difficult on its own, and if you only have thumbnail descriptions for its constituent parts, learning anything at all about différance will be next to impossible. So, when my discussion of différance runs into another important Deconstructive term that is needed to describe it, I will immediately launch into a discussion of it, in as much depth as I would if it were being dealt with on its own. In this way, I hope that the highly integrative aspects of Deconstruction will come to the fore; everything is so intimately connected to everything else that talking in loops and circles is often the best way forward.
Looking at the word différance itself for a moment, we can see that it looks a lot like the word difference in English, and this word is spelled the same way in French, and means the same thing (although it is pronounced differ-ANCE, as the French tend to back-load their words, while in English we front-load them). So, the term obviously contains something to do with difference, but what is the a doing there in the middle of the word? It is not there in the English or French, and does not make the mind immediately spring to something else. Is it just a little irritant, making our reading experience more difficult, and frustrating our ease of comprehension? Is it another one of those Deconstructive moves that is designed to unbalance the very language upon which it comments and in which it is based? Or is it some kind of pun, a little word play designed to baffle those who do not understand Deconstruction, to keep those out who have not been initiated?
In a word, the answer to this question is simply yes. Whenever you first see a Deconstructive term, it is vital that you examine it for all of its possibilities, because this kind of close reading is absolutely vital to the Deconstructive project. Close reading is a term that we first encountered in the New Critics, and while Deconstruction is committed to a position that is firmly and sometimes even rabidly opposed to the New Critical one, they do employ this favored technique for going deeper in the text. The difference, of course, is that the New Critic plumbs the depths of literary texts to find out how they are unified in ways that are not obvious, despite their obvious differences on the surface. The Deconstructionist, on the other hand, takes this close reading and keeps it going, presenting a reading that could have been produced by the New Critics, but then extending it until all of the subtle differences and tensions are brought out even more than the previously discovered unity.
