Deconstruction
-is defined as a way of analyzing literature that
assumes that the text cannot have a fixed
meaning.
-it refers to the approaches to understanding
the relationship between text and meaning.
JACQUES DERRIDA
● He was an Algerian-born French philosopher best
known for developing philosophical approach that
came to be known as deconstruction.
● The deconstruction theory in literature finds written
manifestation in ‘Of Grammatology.
Impact of Deconstruction
● Takes away from the text because you are
looking for what’s not there.
● Makes literature seems like “word play”.
● Humanists view it as “wedge between life and
literature”
● Looks for ideologies that are in our language
Binary Oppositions
● The most important part of deconstruction.
● This literary criticism uses binary oppositions
to look at what is not in the story.
● Of the two parts of the binary oppositions,
there is a dominant and oppress, or non
dominant.
Signified And Signifier In
Deconstruction
● Signifier- the written and sound
construction that makes up a word
● Signified- the meaning of the word
HOW IS IT USED IN LITERARY
ANALYSIS?
• Used as a tool in narrative analysis
• Starts with a very careful reading that looks for inconsistency and
contradictions in the text
• The results often uncovering of a deeply complex foundation that is
difficult to make sense of
• This is one of the many criticism of Deconstruction, that it nihilistic and
unproductive because it leads to uncertainty.
Deconstruction may strike you as a negative, even
destructive, critical approach, and yet its best
practitioners are adept at exposing the inadequacy
of much conventional criticism. By patient analysis,
they can sometimes open up the most familiar text
and find in it fresh and unexpected significance.
STEPS IN DECONSTRUCTING
1. READ CAREFULLY
2. PRESENT AN ARGUMENT AND FIND INCONSISTENCY
AND CONTRADICTIONS ON THE TEXT
3. LOOK FOR AN IDEA THAT IS NOT THERE
4. PROVIDE YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION
The Little Black Boy
William Blake
My mother bore me in the southern wild, My mother taught me underneath a tree
And I am black, but O! my soul is white; And sitting down before the heat of day,
White as an angel is the English child: She took me on her lap and kissed me,
But I am black as if bereav’d of light. And pointing to the east began to say.
Look on the rising sun: And we are put on earth a For when our souls have
there God does live little space, learn’d the heat to bear
And gives his light, and That we may learn to bear The cloud will vanish we
gives his heat away. the beams of love, shall hear his voice.
And flowers and trees and And these black bodies and Saying: come out from the
beasts and men receive this sun-burnt face grove my love & care,
Comfort in morning joy in Is but a cloud, and like a And round my golden tent
the noonday. shady grove. like lambs rejoice.
Thus did my mother say and kissed me,
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I form black and he form white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy:
I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear,
To lean in joy upon our fathers knee.
And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him and he will then love me.
Deconstructionist criticism
of the poem
William Blake’s “The Little Black Boy” contains
several clear binary oppositions – primarily:
white/black,
lighted/shaded
saved/unsaved.
The speaker identifies the tension between all three of these issues in the opening quatrain:
“I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereav’d of light.” (2-4)
Light is clearly a privileged term as it is tied to God
“Look on the rising sun: there God does live
and gives his light”
while shade and black are clearly non-privileged;
“these black bodies and this sunburnt face
is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
For when our souls have learn’d the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish” (9-10, 15-18).
Only pure souls that have learned God’s love will be saved, since only after
“our souls have learn’d the heat to bear” will “the cloud . . . vanish” so that “we shall
hear [God’s] voice” inviting us to “rejoice” (17, 18, 20).
Furthermore, shade as a non-privileged term is undermined by the
fact it is needed to
“shade [the little English boy] from the heat, till he can bear
to lean in joy upon our father’s knee” (25-26)
so in essence, both blackness and shade are necessary to save
anyone (25-26). The poem cannot seem to decide that white is
superior to black, as at first only black is implicated as “bereav’d of
light” but later on the “white as an angel” “ little English boy” is also
trapped by a “white cloud” (clouds cast shade in the poem and
being black “is but a cloud” in the mother’s words) from which he
must become “free” (3, 4, 16, 22, 23).
The text/speaker also seems utterly
contradictions to being saved.
The final lines state that after the eponymous little
black boy saves the “little English boy” that he will
“stand and stroke [the boy’s] hair, / and be like him,
and he will then love me” – showing the “little black
boy” really simply wishes to “be like” the “white as an
angel . . . English child” rather than be saved (3, 22,
26, 27).
The collapsed ideology creates
new implications
black and white are equal, being
saved is not the ultimate goal (in the
speaker’s mind) and while light
seems superior, shade is a required
and necessary precursor to light.
The collapsed ideology creates new
implications
“The Little Black Boy”’s initial overt ideological
projection collapses in on itself and creates both
ambivalence in the case of being saved or light and
shade and support for equality (or even superiority) of
black instead of white:
the black boy is needed to “shade [the white boy]
from the heat, till he can bear / to lean in joy upon our
father’s knee” (25-26)
If we were never challenged,
we would never learn anything
Epictetus
QUESTION
AND
ANSWER
It is the most important part of
deconstruction.
Binary Oppositions
It is the written and sound
construction that makes up a
word
Signifier
It refers to the approaches to
understanding the relationship
between text and meaning.
Deconstruction
What is the second step in
deconstructing?
PRESENT AN ARGUMENT AND FIND
INCONSISTENCY AND CONTRADICTIONS ON
THE TEXT
