Post-structuralism and deconstruction

1. Mustafa Yousufi
Literary theories and criticism
first semester
English Department
Pamukkale University in Turkey
Post structuralism and Deconstruction

2. What is Post structuralism ?
Post structuralism is the name for a movement in philosophy
that began in the early of 1960s and end of 1970s and also
displaced structuralism. It is closely related to Post-Modernism
It remains an influence not only in philosophy, but also in a
wider set of subjects, including literature, politics, art, cultural
criticisms, history and sociology.
In the Post-Structuralist approach to textual analysis,
the reader replaces the author as the primary subject of inquiry
and, without a central fixation on the author, Post-Structuralists
examine other sources for meaning (e.g., readers, cultural
norms, other literature, etc),

3. Writers of Post structuralism
 Roland Barthes
 Roland Barthes (1915 - 1980), originally a
confirmed Structuralist, published his “The Death of the
Author” in 1968, in which he argued that any literary text
has multiple meanings, and that the author was not the prime
source of the work's semantic content.
 In his 1967 work "Elements of Semiology", he also
advanced the concept of the metalanguage, a systematized way
of talking about concepts like meaning and
grammar beyond the force of traditional (first-order) language.

4. Writers of Post structuralism
 Jacques Derrida
In his 1966 lecture "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse
of the Human Science", Jacques Derrida (a key figure in the
early Post-Structuralist movement, although he later founded
the Deconstructionism movement), was one of the first to
propose some theoretical limitations to Structuralism, and
identified that (referring to the displacement of the author of a
text as having greatest effect on a text itself, in favour of the
various readers of the text), which came to be known as Post-
Structuralism.

5. Differences between the Structuralism and Post structuralism
 Structuralism and post structuralism have a great deal in common. Post
structuralism retains structuralism’s emphasis on language; furthermore,
they retain the structuralist belief that all cultural systems can be
represented as “coded systems of meaning rather than direct
transactions with reality.”
 Moreover, many of the individuals commonly associated with post
structuralism Foucault, Baudrillard, even Barthes—began as
structuralists and moved in the course of their thought in a
poststructuralist direction. However, there are some key differences that
help us to define the terms, even though we should understand them not
as strict categories but as positions along a spectrum.

6. Differences between the Structuralism and Post structuralism
 It is a literary theory.
 It can be related it with text and make study of text.
Studied the underlying structure.
 Post-structuralism is a response to Structuralism.
 The rejection of the self-sufficiency of the structures.
 Closely related to Post-modernism.
 Study must be done on base of knowledge.
 Structuralism
Post structuralism

7. Two types of differences
 Theoretical Difference  Practical Difference

8. Differences between the Structuralism and Post structuralism
 Theoretical Difference
 Origins
 Tone and Style
 Attitude to Language
 Project By

9.  Theoretical Difference
 Origins
Structuralism
 Derives from Linguistics.
Collect data systematically.
 Logical deduction.
 Able to find reliable conclusion.
Believes in system, method and
reason.
 Able to establish reliable truth.
Post-structuralism
 Derives from Philosophy.
 It is just oral.
Usually undercuts.
 Questions notions and
assumption.
Fully aware about the irony
and paradox.

10.  Theoretical Difference
 Tone & Style
Structuralism Post-structuralism
 Abstraction and Generalization
 Complete with diagrams
 Step by step exposition
 Tone: Typical
 Style: Neutral and Typical
 Scientific writing
 Aim: Scientific coolness
 Much more emotive
 Bas on a word play
 Puns and Allusion
 Tone: Urgent and euphoric
 Style: showy and flashy
 Aim: An engaged warmth
Puns : make a play on words, use words comically to
create several possible meanings

11. Structuralism Post-structuralism
 The linguistic medium
 An orderly system
 Not choice
 Use: To think and to perceive
 Language is threat
 Reality is textual
 Not achieving any knowledge
through language
Not fully in control of language
Metaphorical base of words
Use: to deconstruct a text
 Theoretical Difference
 Attitude to Language

12. Structuralism Post-structuralism
 Questions our way of
structuring and categorizing
reality
 Free of habitual modes of
perception or categorization
 More reliable view of thing
 Much more fundamental
Individual is a product of
social and linguistic force
 Tissue of textualities
Western civilization built on it
 Theoretical Difference
 Project by or Fundamental aims

13. What is Deconstruction ?
 Deconstruction is a form of philosophical and literary analysis
derived by the French philosopher from Jacques Derrida's 1967
work Of Grammatology.
 In the 1980s it designated more loosely a range of theoretical
enterprises in different areas of the humanities and social sciences,
including—in addition to philosophy and literature.
 Deconstruction is philosophy of meaning; free play of meaning. The
word bird have a lot of meanings and those meanings play into our
mind. To identify the meaning and true meaning of words is
deconstruction. Language always empowers us. Words control us.
We do not go beyond the words

14.  If we consider one superior then it means we have already
considered one inferior. Superiority of one thing and inferiority
of that thing always come together It always goes on changing.
We do not have general view.
 Binary Opposition
Superiority
Good
Day
Light
Male
White
Majority
Inferiority
Bad
Night
Darkness
Female
Black
Minority

15.  Majority has power position and controls others and minority
suffers, Faces many problems. The way people use words becomes
more important. Deconstruction helps us understand silence voices,
ignored things which are left out. Deconstruction changes our way
of looking towards different things and our perspectives.
 The thing which arrives after the first thing redefines the previous
and the first thing. Idea becomes ideology. Meaning are given in the
context. The idea of signifier and signified comes. Words have
different meanings. In written words meaning dies. The spoken
words are more contextualized. Written things are judged and
examined by readers.