CHAPTER 8: DECONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM

In her 1999 Critical Theory Second Version, Tyson explored Deconstructive Criticism: its
thoughts and a Feminist reading of The Great Gatsby.

Deconstruction, according to Tyson (1999), is a method of understanding literature

predicated on the notion that language is unknown. Deconstruction is no longer a novel concept
in academia however, it was Jacques Derrida in the late 1960s who introduced this theory to the
school of literary and made a major influence in the late 1970s. For Derrida, in order to
understand how deconstruction works that reveals the ideology in our daily lives and
experiences, we must first acknowledge the importance of language in the lens of
deconstruction. Derrida believes that language is dynamic, unstable, fluid and a set of clashing
ideologies and that it’s not a reliable tool for communication that we believe to be.
“Deconstruction’s theory of language, in contrast, is based on the belief that language is much
more slippery and ambiguous than we realize.” (p.250)

Tyson also indicates that deconstruction offers us an ability to think critically and see more
readily the ways in which our experience is determined by ideologies of which we are unaware
because they are built into our language. These becomes a tool to understand the oppressive
ideologies that are present in other theories. Derrida believes that language has two important
attributes: “(1) its play of signifiers continually defers, or postpones meaning, and (2) the
meaning it seems to have is the result of differences by which we distinguish one signifier from
another.

Tyson reveals two reasons to deconstruct a literary text: “(1) to reveal the text’s
undecidability and/or (2) to reveal the complex operations of the ideologies of which the text is
constructed” (p.259) Deconstructive critics argue that meaning is generated in literature via the
process of reading. "Moments" of meaning are produced while the reader is reading, but they
inevitably give way to even more meanings, with each new reading establishing its own unique
meaning. Deconstructive criticism reveals a great deal of being a human. It isn't just language
that is unstable; human beings are also insecure. As Tyson states “We don’t really have an
identity because the word identity implies that we consist of one, singular self, when in fact we
are multiple and fragmented, consisting at any moment of any number of conflicting beliefs,
desires, fears, anxieties and intentions” (p. 251).

To sum up, here are the three takeaways of language: (1) Language is dynamic, vague, and
unstable and continuously provides various interpretations; (2) no constant meaning, no solid
basis; and (3) Humanity is a fragmented battleground for conflicting ideologies, where the only
"identity" is what we conceive and choose to believe in language is constantly overflowing with
implications, associations, and contradictions that reflect the implications, associations and
contradictions of the ideologies of which it is formed.

To put it another way, we don't deconstruct a text; we illustrate how a text deconstructs itself.