for students of English Literature... related to American Literature

1. Post-Structuralism/Deconstruction

2. Post-Structuralist Tenets
A reaction against the perceived
authoritarianism of Structuralism
Language itself is an issue: our tool for making
meaning is ambiguous and arbitrary; language is
imperfect, slippery; meanings change; tension
exists between denotation and connotation
Because language has this quality, it can be
contradictory.

3. Because authors cannot control
their language, texts reveal more
than their authors are aware of.
Deconstructionists are interested in what is below
the surface of the text: the subtext. They want to
peer behind the text's "disguises."

4. • "The text seems to be about…, but really it
is about…."

5. Deconstructionists are interested in the
world outside the text and its influence on
the text. This interest provides common
ground with Marxist, Feminist, and New
Historicist critics.

6.  Rather than resolving a text's contradictions, paradoxes,
and ambiguities (as a Formalist would),
Deconstructionists use those facets to show there is no
single, authoritative reading, but rather meanings to be
actively created by the reader.
 These inconsistencies may expose what appears to be the
dominant "reading" and actually undermine it.

7. • Jacques Derrida (b. 1930): As a
response to Structuralism and
Formalism, he asserts that the
meaning of all texts is
undecidable.

8. DerridaDerrida
 attacks Structuralism's dependence on binaryattacks Structuralism's dependence on binary
oppositions; asserts that in a binary opposition,oppositions; asserts that in a binary opposition,
one is always privileged over the otherone is always privileged over the other
(examples: "black/white"; "man/woman";(examples: "black/white"; "man/woman";
"heterosexual/homosexual")"heterosexual/homosexual")
 aims to destabilize hierarchies, upset theaims to destabilize hierarchies, upset the
dominance of one term in a binary oppositiondominance of one term in a binary opposition

9.  Texts can contain contradictoryTexts can contain contradictory
meanings.meanings.
 One who looks for a single meaning in aOne who looks for a single meaning in a
text is "imprisoned" by it.text is "imprisoned" by it.

10.  Texts can contain contradictoryTexts can contain contradictory
meanings.meanings.
 One who looks for a single meaning in aOne who looks for a single meaning in a
text is "imprisoned" by it.text is "imprisoned" by it.