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This blog is a response to a task given by Prof. Dilip Barad as a part of our work related to the unit Derrida and Deconstruction under a paper named Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies in the syllabus of MA, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, Department of English
Deconstruction focuses on binary opposites within a text; in other words, two terms that are opposite in meaning, such as men versus women . Deconstruction seeks to show readers how both terms are related, that one is the center, and the other is marginalized.
. Expound Derrida's concept of decentering center and complementarity
In the criticism of literature, Deconstruction is a theory and practice of reading which questions and claims to 'subvert' or 'undermine' the assumption that the system of language provides grounds that are adequate to establish the boundaries, the coherence or unity, and the determine meaning of a literary text. Typically, a deconstructive reading sets out to show the conflicting forces within the text itself to dissipate the seeming definiteness of its structure and meaning into an indefinite array of incompatibility and undecidable possibilities.
Derrida was the most influential philosopher in the 70s and 80s of the last century. His philosophy is the further extension of structuralism and is better called as Post-Structuralism. He carries this structuralist movement to its logical extreme and his reasoning is original and startling. We have seen in this movement that as in New Criticism, the attention was shifted from the writer to the work of literary text; consequently textual analysis became more important than extra textual information. Further, the author disappeared and only the text remained. This is what we called the stylistic and structuralist position. The meaning as it emerges from the text (the illocutionary force) alone counted. In this process the importance of the reader and his understanding increased, and the Reader Response or Reception Theory came into being. Derrida gives the same process a further and final push according to which what matters is the reading and not the writing of the text. At times one feels, though not quite justifiably, that, in Derrida even the text disappears and what is left behind is an individual's reader response to it. Now the reader rules the supreme, and the validity of his reading cannot be challenged. However, the structure of each reading has to be coherent and convincing.
Derrida's concept of 'decentering the Centre' involves a deconstruction of the traditional metaphysical notion of presence. According to Derrida, presence and truth are inseparable from language. He aims to demonstrate that the inherent structure of language does not imply a fixed presence beyond the interplay of signs. Previously, this presence was believed to be the central anchor of meaning within a structure. Paradoxically, it was considered both inside and outside the structure: as truth and intelligibility. However, Derrida argues that this 'centre' cannot be conceptualized as a definitive presence. Within any given text, he proposes, there exists a free interplay of an infinite number of sign substitutions. One word's meaning is elucidated by another word, each being a mere word and not a concrete existence. Consequently, a text comprises words that are solely words, devoid of indication towards an external presence. In the words of John Sturrock, 'Engaging with language or signs entails the relinquishing of uniqueness and immediacy. The sign is not the thing in itself.' It possesses an inherent repeatability. A sign spoken only once loses its meaning. It's the categories that lend significance to each instance of speech."
