- "The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida..."
The study of how meaning is created and deconstructed in literary works.
Structuralism: A theory that studies the way language and culture create meaning through various binary oppositions.
Post-Structuralism: A revision of Structuralism that argues that meaning is not fixed but is fluid and constantly changing.
Jacques Derrida: The founder of Deconstruction theory, who introduced the concept of "différance" to reveal the inherent instability of language and the meaning-making process.
The Literary Canon: The set of works that are deemed to be the most important and influential in a particular language or culture.
Binary Oppositions: The idea that concepts such as black/white, male/female, and good/evil are mutually exclusive and form the basis of meaning in language and culture.
Textuality: The study of the ways in which meaning is created, communicated, and interpreted through language, narrative, and other textual elements.
Paradox: A statement or situation that is self-contradictory or seemingly absurd but reveals a deeper truth about the nature of the world.
Deconstruction: A theory that seeks to reveal the inherent contradictions and ambiguities in language and other cultural systems, challenging the assumptions of the literary canon and exposing the power structures that underlie them.
Intertextuality: The relationship between different texts and the ways in which they interact or influence each other, creating new meanings and interpretations.
Hegemony: The dominance of one group or ideology over others, often maintained through language and other cultural systems that marginalize or exclude alternative perspectives.
The Death of the Author: The idea that the meaning of a text is not determined by the author's intentions, but rather by the reader's interpretation.
The Other: The marginalized or excluded groups within society whose perspectives are often ignored or silenced in dominant discourse.
Rhizome: A metaphor used by Deconstruction theorists to describe the interconnectedness and fluidity of meanings in language and culture.
Postmodernism: An intellectual and artistic movement that rejects the concept of universal truth and emphasizes the importance of subjective experience and cultural context in shaping reality.
Ideology: The set of beliefs and values that underlie and reinforce social, political, and economic power structures.
Binary opposition deconstruction: This approach looks at the common dualities in a novel, identifying and deconstructing the extremes of those dualities. For instance, good and evil or man and woman.
Contextual deconstruction: This approach looks at a novel through the historical, cultural, and social context in which it is written with emphasis on the contradictions in the social context.
Derridean Deconstruction: This approach, often credited to the philosopher Jacques Derrida, is focused on examining the binary oppositions and logics which the text relies on, probing the characters’ words to uncover the underlying meaning.
Psychoanalytic deconstruction: This approach examines the psychological and emotional interior of the characters focusing on what they say about their own identities, actions, and motivations, demonstrating how these can be interpreted in different ways.
Gender deconstruction: This approach often focused on feminist analysis, which looks at the way that gender identities are constructed within a text, reconstructing the attributes of masculinity and femininity.
Structural deconstruction: This approach focuses on breaking down the structure of the novel to show how its form as well its content is critical to its meaning.
Reader-response deconstruction: This approach emphasizes the impact of the reader's interpretation of the text with focus on how individual interpretation shifts the meaning.
Intertextual Deconstruction: This approach focuses on the interconnectedness of texts and how each text relies on earlier texts to build meaning.
- "Jacques Derrida described it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of 'true' forms and essences..."
- "...Platonism's ideas of 'true' forms and essences which are valued above appearances."
- "...proposals of language's fluidity instead of being ideally static and discernible..."
- "...inspired a range of studies in the humanities, including the disciplines of law, anthropology, historiography, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, LGBT studies, and feminism."
- "Deconstruction also inspired deconstructivism in architecture..."
- "...important within art, music, and literary criticism."
- "...since the 1980s..."
- "The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida..."
- "...a turn away from Platonism's ideas of 'true' forms and essences..."
- "...law, anthropology, historiography, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, LGBT studies, and feminism."
- "Deconstruction also inspired deconstructivism in architecture..."
- "...language's fluidity instead of being ideally static and discernible..."
- "...remains important within art, music, and literary criticism."
- "...Platonism's ideas of 'true' forms and essences..."
- "...studies in the humanities, including the disciplines of law, anthropology, historiography, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, LGBT studies, and feminism."
- "The philosopher Jacques Derrida described it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas..."
- "...studies in the humanities, including law, anthropology, historiography, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, LGBT studies, and feminism."
- "Deconstruction also inspired deconstructivism in architecture..."
- "...proposals of language's fluidity instead of being ideally static and discernible have inspired a range of studies..."