Derrida and Deconstruction

This blog is a response to the assigned  thinking activity task by our professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir. In this blog I am going to present my understanding of 'Deconstruction' as well as deconstruct a poem, 'The Solider' by Rupert Brooke.

About the Author: 

Jacques Derrida  was an Algerian-born French philosopher best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he analyzed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.

During his career, Derrida published more than 40 books, together with hundreds of essays and public presentations. He had a significant influence on the humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, literature, law, anthropology, historiography, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, architecture, and political theory.

Let's look at the meaning of the term deconstruction in a simpler way.

This image is of a building which is not symmetrical, in architecture or construction field they also call it 'Deconstruction'. Just by looking at the simple example of architecture we can say Deconstruction is not Destruction but it is creation, which is already proved by many critics.

   

What is Deconstruction:

The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was originated by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences which take precedence over appearances, instead considering the constantly changing complex function of language, making static and idealist ideas of it inadequate. Deconstruction instead places emphasis on the mere appearance of language in both speech and writing, or suggests at least that essence as it is called is to be found in its appearance, while it itself is "undecidable", and everyday experiences cannot be empirically evaluated to find the actuality of language.

Paul de Man, a member of the Yale School and a prominent practitioner of deconstruction as he understood it. His definition of deconstruction is that, 

"it's possible, within text, to frame a question or undo assertions made in the text, by means of elements which are in the text, which frequently would be precisely structures that play off the rhetorical against grammatical elements."

Deconstruction refers to the pursuit of a text's meaning to the point of exposing the implied contradictions and internal oppositions upon which it is built, supposedly demonstrating that those foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable, or impossible. It is a method that can be used in philosophy, literary analysis, and even scientific writing analysis. Deconstruction generally attempts to demonstrate that a text is not a discrete whole, but rather contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings; that any text thus has more than one interpretation; that the text itself inextricably links these interpretations; that the incompatibility of these interpretations is irreducible; and thus that an interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point.

Deconstruction of a Poem:

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. 

Rupert Brooke is a very famous poem and it has served very well as a patriotic or a nationalist poem. Here we are going to deconstruct this poem by trying to find possible biases and binary oppositions in this poem. 

Bias:

We are well aware that this poem is patriotic poem and that's where its bias is created, we can read that the whole poem is talking about nationalism the voice of the speaker is nationalist. Let's say for example the lines,

"If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England"

Its not just this line but the whole pome is only talking about  England, so we can say that the poem is England centric poem and creates many biases against nations other than England. 

Binary:

A division into two groups or classes that are considered diametrically opposite. (Definition)

If I should die...

The very first words of this poem are speaking of 'I' which means a human and in later poem speaker is comparing the sun, river, dust, and land with that of England, so here it creates a binary opposition between human and nature as well as England and other nations.

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

The words in this lines like 'body of England', English air, suns of home' might/are creating double meaning because it almost sounds as if England is having a sun of their own, and air is also different from what the rest of the world is breathing. This line are proving that one can not find meaning, we only are postponing the meaning. The language of this poem is proving Derrida's claim that is,

 "Language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique".

 This poem was written during World War to motivate Soldiers and recruits but its normal to assume that the soldier weren't fools to think that wherever they die it doesn't matter because they are dying for their country.