# Reading > Philosophical Literature >  Deconstruction theory

## blazeofglory

I read Deconstruction theory of late. It is very tough to understand this indeed.

I have read some where this theory was already there in the sixties and Derrida had illustrated this idea in several books and claimed that this idea can be applied to different disciplines. However this has more to do with linguistics and literature.

I wonder if there are any books, any stories, any novels, any piece of creation written based on this theory. I am very curious. If anybody of the forum knows any piece of creation exists centering on this philosophy, can you tell me that ? Maybe owing to my limited knowledge I do not find it used in any piece of creativity.

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## JBI

The theory is used to criticize, I cant' see how it can be used to construct.

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## Lambert

I would just say just a basic grounding in the _majority_ of Western Philosophers, mainly the Greeks and the philosophers of language. 

Like most philosophers, the Deconstructionists wrote in a rigid and particular philosophical language (Hegel would be a good comparison). It boils down to terminology really. If you can get the hang of it, deconstructionist texts shouldn't pose too much difficulty.

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## blazeofglory

> I would just say just a basic grounding in the _majority_ of Western Philosophers, mainly the Greeks and the philosophers of language. 
> 
> Like most philosophers, the Deconstructionists wrote in a rigid and particular philosophical language (Hegel would be a good comparison). It boils down to terminology really. If you can get the hang of it, deconstructionist texts shouldn't pose too much difficulty.


The fundamental question I have is I want to know if there are books or any piece of literature written within the constructionist frame. This idea was popularized by Derrida in the sixties. 

We have books written within existential flavors; we have some of magic realism and why we do not have any rooted in the idea of deconstruction.

I am desperately interested in understanding this.

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## blazeofglory

> The theory is used to criticize, I cant' see how it can be used to construct.


I subscribe to your idea to the extent that some critics or detractors like to critique others, and while they ca not come with a piece of literature and they simply enjoy critiquing others. 

However, my point simply is to understand deconstruction at its very base and I ask if you can share what you understand by deconstructionist .

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## Lambert

> We have books written within existential flavors; we have some of magic realism and why we do not have any rooted in the idea of deconstruction.
> 
> I am desperately interested in understanding this.


I see what you're getting at, but the problem in trying to link deconstructionist philosophy and literature is the broadness of deconstructionism. You could practically put the majority of literary fiction from the 1950's onwards in the category "works influenced by deconstructionism."

Unlike existentialism, deconstruction isn't concerned so much with the question "what is man?". It's more like a philosophical investigation of philosophy itself. I've heard it described as an extreme form of skepticism and I must admit that is an apt description. The only difference between the Skepticism of the Ancient Greeks and Deconstructionism, is that deconstructionism focuses strongly on language. You'll probably be wondering "Well, if deals with language then it must be hugely important in literature". But again, deconstructionism is so broad that it's very hard to determine what could be considered "decontructionist literature" in the same way that there's existentialist literature.

I'll try think of authors or works but I'll bet someone here will think of some as well.

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## blazeofglory

It's more like a philosophical investigation of philosophy itself... focuses strongly on language. You'll probably be wondering "Well, if deals with language then it must be hugely important in literature". But again, deconstructionism is so broad that it's very hard to determine what could be considered "decontructionist literature" 

I feel it is revisiting philosophical inferences or suppositions traditionally carried on. To see different diemensions of assumed truths, and to look at things from a detached perspective. In some respect it is likened to lateral thinking, ideas of Edward Bono. 

But yet I am unsure I have understood it. Maybe it has to do the limitation of my knowledge, I could not comprehend the idea of Derrida. I read something and I end up being unable to conclude anything, meaninglessly or bleakly. Ye t this fascinates me, for I am convinced of the fact that deconstruction helps writers to look things differently than how traditionally done.

Yet I still wonder why there is not a single story that is evidently reckoned deconstrutionist.

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## Lambert

> Yet I still wonder why there is not a single story that is evidently reckoned deconstrutionist.


Derrida considered only two books worth having:



> ...an American tourist of the most typical variety leaned over my shoulder and sighed: "So many books! What is the definitive one? Is there any?" It was an extremely small book shop, a news agency. I almost replied, "Yes, there are two of them, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake


Obviously he must have seen a kind of kinship between Joyces last two great works and his own philosophy.

The only other writer who Ive heard being described as having deconstructionist traits in his work is Thomas Pynchon.

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## blazeofglory

> Derrida considered only two books worth having:
> 
> Obviously he must have seen a kind of kinship between Joyces last two great works and his own philosophy.
> 
> The only other writer who Ive heard being described as having deconstructionist traits in his work is Thomas Pynchon.


Thank you Lambert for generously giving me some examples. I am really seeking to have an in-depth knowledge of what Derrida is really up to. Sometimes what he really did is used jumbles of words and amalgamated them in to complex structures. I feel at time writers, some great writers, all that they do is they simply confound readers making simple things more complex, for at times the more the writer is complex, the more he becomes complex.

This is what I sometime feel. For our feelings are in flux, and situations at times camouflages our feelings.

I thank you once more. I will read Joyce's works to update myself with what he really stood for.

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## quasimodo1

The endless deconstructionist matrix: http://www.twow.net/Lo/LoOdaW.htm

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## Redzeppelin

Deconstruction is a theory that "eats itself" because it suggests that texts have no inherent meaning in them due to the unstable and "liquid" nature of meanings that words suggest. What Derrida and cohorts seem to believe is that their words (the ones establishing Deconstructionism) do have a "solid" meaning that we all subscribe to. How can that be? Aren't their words as prone to any other "texts" to reader-determined meaning?

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## Lambert

> Deconstruction is a theory that "eats itself" because it suggests that texts have no inherent meaning in them due to the unstable and "liquid" nature of meanings that words suggest. What Derrida and cohorts seem to believe is that their words (the ones establishing Deconstructionism) do have a "solid" meaning that we all subscribe to. How can that be? Aren't their words as prone to any other "texts" to reader-determined meaning?


Thats a good point. But I see it more from the writers dilemma. 

Deconstruction holds that absolute authorial intention is impossible since it holds that the writer will always subconsciously enter something into the text that they did not intend to have there in the first place. 

It should be said that this idea has its origin from Freud and much of Freudian theory is hugely debatable. Even so, writers such as Martin Amis still hold that during their writing process, their subconscious is heavily involved; often pushing them into areas of thought they did not intend to digress into.

It could be said that both the writer and the reader are totality unable to determine the objective meaning of a text and that from the moment of its creation it remains completely variable in its meaning. Or it could be that the absolute truths of a text do exist but are unknowable to us due to the limit of our knowledge.

But Im rambling here....

Any other thoughts?

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## blazeofglory

> Deconstruction is a theory that "eats itself" because it suggests that texts have no inherent meaning in them due to the unstable and "liquid" nature of meanings that words suggest. What Derrida and cohorts seem to believe is that their words (the ones establishing Deconstructionism) do have a "solid" meaning that we all subscribe to. How can that be? Aren't their words as prone to any other "texts" to reader-determined meaning?


Yes their ideas too are not infallible, and their words must suffer lots of flaws. How can they have a solid meaning. No meaning is totally solid, and we can not see all dimensions of the thing we claim we see and understand.

I think all that Derrida and his companions do simply confound us, and there is no concrete ideas. 

His analysis that texts have no inherent meaning does no apply in all circumstances; maybe in a particular circumstance what he said holds truths, and not in all cirucmsances. Already in the study of semantics we study ambiguities in meanings. 

Therefore all what we say the unstable and liquid mature of meanings was already expressed in semantics.

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## don't panic

Hi, this is my first post, and I couldn't help but stick my nose in here. I'm taking a course in Critical Readingand our professor, to lighten things up a bit when trying to explain Derridas brought us some narrations. "Plato's Pharmacy," from Introducing Derrida. It was very helpful and perhaps you could find it online. I'm unable to post attachments yet or I would post one here. If you'd like to email me I could send it to you.

Faith

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## KidTruth

Maybe I can help: 

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is strongly influenced by deconstructionism - note the cyclical pattern which the book takes. 

Lewis Carrel (pseudonym) used mathematical deconstructionist theories to write many of the sections of his book. In fact, he was a mathematician who spent a lot of time writing very complex equations which always boiled down to nothing (sound familiar?) It was a game he and his father played.

You could make a strong case that Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce is a deconstructionist work as well, due to its cyclical nature. 

There are many works of art that follow the themes of deconstructionism, so don't give up hope on your studies. 

"Waiting for Godot" is another good example. 

Almost anything by William Borroughs ... another good example. "Naked Lunch" for instance. 

While deconstructionism is a style of criticism, there are many works of art that apply to its tenets (or lack thereof.)

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## KidTruth

> Thats a good point. But I see it more from the writers dilemma. 
> 
> Deconstruction holds that absolute authorial intention is impossible since it holds that the writer will always subconsciously enter something into the text that they did not intend to have there in the first place. 
> 
> It should be said that this idea has its origin from Freud and much of Freudian theory is hugely debatable. Even so, writers such as Martin Amis still hold that during their writing process, their subconscious is heavily involved; often pushing them into areas of thought they did not intend to digress into.
> 
> It could be said that both the writer and the reader are totality unable to determine the objective meaning of a text and that from the moment of its creation it remains completely variable in its meaning. Or it could be that the absolute truths of a text do exist but are unknowable to us due to the limit of our knowledge.
> 
> But Im rambling here....
> ...



Interesting thought for you - some of our oldest texts have become deconstructionist tenets. Gilgamesh, the Oddysey, the Illiad, the works of Plato... these are works in which all knowledge of the author/authors have been lost, and thus they have become deconstructionist texts in the sense that the author's input has been completely separated from the text itself.

In the 60's you see this too, as with Borroughs as I noted above, because in his case he wrote under the influence of many many drugs that caused him to lose a sense of self - Naked Lunch, for instance, he wrote and then tossed around his room to disorganize the pages. 

It's also important to note for your studies/discussion that you need to separate the concept of the author from the concept of the book in order to clarify for yourself. After a book is written, it exists regardless of what the author intended to put into it, and it can be argued that whatever he believed or intended to say is entirely irrelevant. I digress, though - this is more Reader Response criticism.

Again, I'd like to say - Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. One of the best books written after 1950 in America, and even the name itself applies to many Deconstructionist theories.

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## AuntShecky

Unless the writer is trying to satirize or parody the particular school of thought, writing a piece-to-order as a way of fitting a critical theory is like a little kid who builds something with wooden blocks just for the thrill of knocking it down.
My instinct tells me that an artist creates a work for the work itself not to please any audience or critic. On the other hand, the deconstructionist Derrida-ites are on the right track by considering what is there on the page. To state it again, when we start reading, all we have is what's there.

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## Virgil

> My instinct tells me that an artist creates a work for the work itself not to please any audience or critic.


I whole heartedly agree.





> On the other hand, the deconstructionist Derrida-ites are on the right track by considering what is there on the page. To state it again, when we start reading, all we have is what's there.


I whole heartedly disagree. They are not looking on the page, but inferring based on current thought what the writer in a past age is not saying. Completely flawed in my opinion.

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## KidTruth

> I whole heartedly disagree. They are not looking on the page, but inferring based on current thought what the writer in a past age is not saying. Completely flawed in my opinion.


I'm not sure I fully understand this. 

I'm a writer myself, and I agree with Aunt's point that this is mainly what writers are thinking about.

HOWEVER - 

We should not confuse writers with critics, and critics such as Derrida give us entire new methods of reading a work - indeed, the different glasses of literary criticism can turn one book into five or six very different books. As a student of literature, I don't believe you should commit to one or the other viewpoint, and that you should be aware of all of them. 

Literary Critics are very rarely saying "this is what the author intended." Probably only genetic criticism takes that viewpoint. Derrida would probably agree with me when I say that it really doesn't matter what the author meant to say, and that taking a book apart to see what the text itself truly says is a valuable tool.

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## blazeofglory

> Unless the writer is trying to satirize or parody the particular school of thought, writing a piece-to-order as a way of fitting a critical theory is like a little kid who builds something with wooden blocks just for the thrill of knocking it down.
> My instinct tells me that an artist creates a work for the work itself not to please any audience or critic. On the other hand, the deconstructionist Derrida-ites are on the right track by considering what is there on the page. To state it again, when we start reading, all we have is what's there.


I agree an artist creates a work of art for the work itself and that is the primary motive, beside that the writer writes definitely targeting at readers and expression is done always keeping in focus the readership. That is why he has some objectives indeed.
I therefore want to say while writers enjoy writing and in itself it is a kind of fulfillment, but it is done, maybe at times it created for sheer self satisfaction also, keeping his readers in mind.

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## Virgil

> Derrida would probably agree with me when I say that it really doesn't matter what the author meant to say,


And that's the problem.

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## blp

> I would just say just a basic grounding in the _majority_ of Western Philosophers, mainly the Greeks and the philosophers of language. 
> 
> Like most philosophers, the Deconstructionists wrote in a rigid and particular philosophical language (Hegel would be a good comparison). It boils down to terminology really. If you can get the hang of it, deconstructionist texts shouldn't pose too much difficulty.


Lambert, sorry, but this is a rather jaw-dropping statement. Getting 'the hang of it' _is_ the difficulty and it's considerable. Derrida's terminology is not only abstruse, but, unlike that of many other philosophers', is used with a constant sense of the instability of its meaning.

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## blp

> The theory is used to criticize, I cant' see how it can be used to construct.


Well, a lot of deconstructionist texts do base themselves quite explicitly on older texts, but then, that's become a strategy in other forms of literature too, including the novel. Whether or not novels that adopt this approach can be said to be 'deconstructionist', they are certainly part of a literary climate that was at least partially defined by deconstruction. 

The novelist Kathy Acker touted herself as a 'plagiarist' - a claim that, in my experience, was slightly exaggerated, but she did frequently base her writings on works by others, whether literally translating a Spanish poem, writing a description of _The Scarlet Letter_ from the point of view of an unhappy teenager or imagining herself hanging out with Genet (all examples from her book _Blood and Guts in Highschool_). Occasionally, actual quotation or misquotation entered the frame, e.g. at the opening of her book _Great Expectations_ where she quotes the beginning of Dickens' eponymous novel, but nonsensically changes the central character's name: 'My father's name being Pirrip and my given name being Phillip, the only thing my youthful tongue could make of these appellations was the abbreviation Peter. So I called myself Peter and came to be called Peter.' As it goes on, the use of this (mis)quote becomes even more absurd as it becomes clear that the central character of Acker's book is (probably) female. 

Acker's recontextualising often has an immediate comic effect (former US president Jimmy Carter turns up in _Blood and Guts..._ as a sexy tough who picks the narrator up in a New York punk club, propositioning her in bluntly obscene language), but might be said to come out of a deconstructionist sense of the infinite possibilities for recontextualisation of language itself - and the possibilities for critique therein. Certainly they have a distancing effect, making the artifice - the constructedness - of the text overt to the reader as they are reading rather than trying to draw them in and make the situations and characters 'come alive'. This metatextual sense of the process of reading and writing as key to the experience of the book rather than something to be marginalised so as to allow the narrative to be enjoyed is certainly in the spirit of deconstruction. Deconstruction sees most, perhaps all writing as operating in a system of binaries in which one half of the equation is always given prominence and centrality over the other (writing vs. speaking - speaking wins; artifice vs. nature - nature wins; etc.) and a large part of its method is to question these relationships and bring the marginalised elements out of the shadows - not to enact a coup in which they become the dominant element, but to create a 'play of differences' in which both elements can operate.

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## KidTruth

> And that's the problem.


I'm going to guess that you write as well. When I first learned these newer postmodern theories - Deconstructionism and Reader Response - I agreed with you. It seemed very unfair that what I had to say through my own book wouldn't matter the second I finished it and released it into the wild.

Then I got over it.

Because it's true. Every reading creates a different, personal meaning within each reader - therefor there is no correct method of reading a book, nor is there one analysis of a text that is going to be empirically correct. Even two critics within the same school of thought rarely agree on exactly what a text means.

But, I suppose YOU have all the right answers.

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## KidTruth

I have an interesting story about this, actually, that demonstrates the different ways a single text can be viewed and taking a story out of its context - how different cultures view texts. 

When I was in Hungary some time ago they just started airing Star Trek, the Next Generation. As you Americans know, there are about 4 commercial breaks in each episode. After the commercial break, there is a brief "catchup" in which the story sets back from right before the break and reminds viewers of where they were before they were interrupted. 

In Hungary, there are only commercial breaks at the beginning and the end of the show. The class I was with there asked me if all Americans were stupid - I asked why - they told me about this. They thought that we Americans needed to be reminded of what was happening in the plot every fifteen minutes as though we couldn't keep up. They thought that this show was very demeaning and made for stupid people, possibly small children. 

The point is - there are many minute cultural conventions, and even cultural conventions that have been lost entirely (in the case of older texts) that can greatly change the way we view a text. Many of these conventions and tricks of the medium have been lost forever, and the reason some things were written the way they were may be lost on us for eternity. We are left filling in the gaps for why we THINK things were written the way they were, but we don't know for sure.

Therefor, we have created our own very different readings for much of our literature; readings that are probably very different from what the author intended. This is natural, and happens on a much smaller scale than my example with practically everything we read.

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## Babbalanja

I'm actually very sympathetic to what I see as the aims of postmodern theory, or my conception of it.

I think it's important to question to what extent our perception of history is influenced by the interests of the powerful. We have to keep in mind how the quality of information in our society depends on who funds its transmission and who conditions the expectations of those who receive it. And it's urgent to understand the myriad ways objectivity can be compromised and dissenting voices silenced.

But asserting that empirical evidential inquiry is an obsolete meta-narrative, or that truth is merely a function of power, is utter folly.

I love what's been called "deconstructive" or postmodern fiction a lot more than I like the essays and screeds that supposedly define the movement. I always found Foucault's writing very clear, even if he belabored points I didn't find particularly interesting. But reading Derrida is like reading the overwrought posts on a schizo's blog.

I recommend David Foster Wallace's _Oblivion_ if people want to read how narratives and perspectives can increase in complexity and self-consciousness until they collapse. Lucy Ellman has written wonderfully comic novels using a bricolage approach: stories, songs, recipes and rants get strung together with no rhyme or reason. My favorite of hers is _Man or Mango?_. Carole Maso writes deadly serious jigsaw-puzzle novels fraught with philosophical tension: I loved the death-row memoir _Defiance_. And of course there's Thomas Pynchon and John Barth, whose work I really love even if I haven't kept up with their latest output.

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## blazeofglory

> I'm actually very sympathetic to what I see as the aims of postmodern theory, or my conception of it.
> 
> I think it's important to question to what extent our perception of history is influenced by the interests of the powerful. We have to keep in mind how the quality of information in our society depends on who funds its transmission and who conditions the expectations of those who receive it. And it's urgent to understand the myriad ways objectivity can be compromised and dissenting voices silenced.
> 
> But asserting that empirical evidential inquiry is an obsolete meta-narrative, or that truth is merely a function of power, is utter folly.
> 
> I love what's been called "deconstructive" or postmodern fiction a lot more than I like the essays and screeds that supposedly define the movement. I always found Foucault's writing very clear, even if he belabored points I didn't find particularly interesting. But reading Derrida is like reading the overwrought posts on a schizo's blog.
> 
> I recommend David Foster Wallace's _Oblivion_ if people want to read how narratives and perspectives can increase in complexity and self-consciousness until they collapse. Lucy Ellman has written wonderfully comic novels using a bricolage approach: stories, songs, recipes and rants get strung together with no rhyme or reason. My favorite of hers is _Man or Mango?_. Carole Maso writes deadly serious jigsaw-puzzle novels fraught with philosophical tension: I loved the death-row memoir _Defiance_. And of course there's Thomas Pynchon and John Barth, whose work I really love even if I haven't kept up with their latest output.


Deconstruction is pretty hard for me, for they keep on deconstructing endlessly and what remains of them at the end of the day is the question that keep on harrowing me. 

They are rooted against tradition, and if tradition is deconstructed what remains of fiction. Indeed we follow a particular tradition in literary art and keep on adding up more and more it. Of course we refine what is traditionally carried on but never breaking up with the entire course of writing. 

Every succeeding generation tired to filter tradition, and indeed the birth of romanticism was rooted in that fact, and in the same way when T.S. Eliot wrote he too considerably refined and was of course critical of the tradition of romanticism, but he never deconstructed the very foundation of tradition.

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## Babbalanja

> Deconstruction is pretty hard for me, for they keep on deconstructing endlessly and what remains of them at the end of the day is the question that keep on harrowing me.


Yeah, I can understand that criticism. Sometimes the writing gets so self-conscious it doesn't seem to be about anything. It's like the Al Gore doll from the Simpsons, which when you pull the string says, "You're listening to me talk." 

But talented authors can still make the writing signify something more than a series of observations on the nature of narrative, or whatever has to be deconstructed that day.

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## blazeofglory

> Yeah, I can understand that criticism. Sometimes the writing gets so self-conscious it doesn't seem to be about anything. It's like the Al Gore doll from the Simpsons, which when you pull the string says, "You're listening to me talk." 
> 
> But talented authors can still make the writing signify something more than a series of observations on the nature of narrative, or whatever has to be deconstructed that day.


You are true. All I feel is literature is a discipline of creativity, and imagination is at work immensely. The main objective is to stretch domains of imagination and at the same time if it catches up some philosophical realms, it will indeed add a feather in the cap. I think Deconstruction is a mere theory, and I feel at times it is a pedantic proposition invented to depict stylishness and classiness of those who advocate this.

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