Using Deconstructive Analysis to Examine Literature
Using Deconstructive Analysis to Examine Literature
Within many English departments around the country today, radical claims about the nature of language have entered into discussions about literary texts. Bred out of the modern critical theory of Deconstruction, these discussions question if the true "meaning" of language can ever be determined. As a mode of literary analysis, Deconstruction essentially asserts that meaning within texts is at best indeterminate and arbitrary, as the language in which they are written is said to "fail," to be "self-contradictory."
In many corners, this type of thinking has developed into a more general trend which, in light of the theory's conclusions about language, further disclaims that any notion of absolute authority exists or ever did. Thus, in the present post-structuralist, post-modern world of literary criticism, this trend becomes manifest as an attitude--a "mindset," if you will--that maintains that all knowledge, or any sense of "Truth," is relative too. This suggestion stands directly against the heritage of Christianity, as well as other religious traditions that are scripturally inspired.
Because the precepts underlying this modern "scholastic" attitude have their "foundations" in Deconstruction, this essay will term the mental posture embracing these larger claims about knowledge and truth as the "deconstructive mindset," for it is important to recognize that such skepticism is willfully adopted and maintained. At least in democratic societies, no one forces an individual to choose how he or she views the world.
One danger of Deconstruction, however, or any other highly theoretical system of inquiry that is not self-critical, is that of too quickly accepting the products of its analyses without questioning the assumptions involved. Those espousing the deconstructive mindset are no exception, as the very "center" of deconstructive reasoning operates on the presupposition that there is no "center" or "ultimate signification." Instead, only a fluctuation and suspension of "disseminated" meaning are said to exist in all things, in any discussion of knowledge that we might have.
Thus rooted in such "logic," the deconstructive mindset closes off the possibility that anything exists outside of or beyond itself, and this "eclipse" eventually reaches its end in an act of generalization. To put it more concretely, because language is said to "subvert" its own meaning, to be arbitrary, and because humanity records and expresses knowledge via language, "Truth" likewise is said to be subverted, to be arbitrary itself.
In response to these assertions, this essay will explore some of...