1 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.
2. 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 form.”
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 Derrida‟s view, deconstruction is neither a philosophy, nor a doctrine, nor a
method, nor a discipline, but “only what happens if it happens”
Derrida‟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‟.
3 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.”62 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.”
63 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.64 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
Examples
Example of the deconstruction is the poem : A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London.
- by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
These is the poem that How we go threw the three stages of deconstruction reading. First stage is the verbal stage, it may be similar to close reading strategy of the new critics.
Dylan says that,
'After the first death, there is no other'
This statement contradicts and refutes itself. If something is called the first is automatically means there is a second is follows the second or third and fourth. So the phrase the first death clearly implies there will be others.
Internal contradiction of these kind will be one way to unravel the meaning of the text. Again the entire form is built upon binary opposite, no like we have binary opposes like,
Male Vs Female
Day Vs Night
Light Vs Dark
So normally in such a binary opposite one term will be privileged or we call it violent hierarchy. One is dominating over other. However in this poem it seems to be darkness.
Humbling darkness,
Tells with silence the last light breaking.
So here it seems to be darkness rather than light you see which is seen as engending life making bird beast and flower fathering and all humbling darkness. So this paradox reflects the way the world of this poem is simultaneously a recognizable version of the word. We live in and an inversion of that word.
So untravelling or identifying such a binary opposes in the bond contradictions and paradoxical elements. It can be one way of the verbal analysis.
The next stage and the deconstructive process is the textual one. In at this stage the critic is looking for shift or breaks in the continued continuity of the bond. So here in the case of the bond a refusal to moan there are major timeshifts and changes in view point not a smooth chronological progression.
So the last night breaks the sea finally becomes still the cycle. Which produces bird beast and flower comes to an end as over humbling darkness doesn't. So this is the passing of geological time is in the first stanza. We can see this but the third stanza is centered on the present the actual death of the child is mentioned in the poem.
The majesty and burning of the child's death,
Unmourning water
Of the riding Themes
This is the way In which the time shift in the bomb.
In the linguistic stage that is the last stage of the deconstructive reading process. Here it involves looking for moments in the poem and the adequacy of language itself the medium of communication is called into question.
Such moments occur when for example there is implicit or explicit reference to the unreliability or untrusted trustworthiness of the language.
So here we come to the real deconstructive process or reading it may involve for instance saying that something is unstable or saying that is impossible to try and describe something and then doing.
So here the entire points is centered on that if you look at the title a refusal to mourn the death so the point says that I refuse to move on the death again he says I shall not murder the mankind of going with the grave. Now blaspheme down the station of the breed with any further elegy of innocence and youth.
References :-
R. Gnanasekaran, “An Introduction to Derrida, Deconstruction and Post-Structuralism,” International
Journal of English Literature and Culture 3 (7) (July 2015): 212.
2) Cf. Juliana Neuenschwander, et al., “Law, Institutions, and Interpretation in Jacques Derrida,” Revista
Direito GV 13, no. 2 (May-August 2017): 587.
3) Cf. Jing Zhai, “Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction,” Not Even Past (blog), October 7, 2015,
https://notevenpast.org/jacques-derrida-and-deconstruction/
4) Thomassen, “Deconstruction as Method in Political Theory,” 43.
5) Jacques Derrida, Points . . . Interviews, 1974–1994, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1995), 112.
6) American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research
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