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Deconstruction vs. Structuralism Explained

The document discusses the tension between structuralism and deconstruction, highlighting Jacques Derrida's critique of structuralist thought, particularly Jonathan Culler's Structuralist Poetics. Culler advocates for a conservative structuralism that seeks to legitimize interpretative methods, while deconstruction challenges the notion of fixed structures in texts and the assumptions underpinning traditional literary analysis. Ultimately, deconstruction posits that meaning is not predetermined by mental structures but is instead fluid and contingent.

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Christina Imanuel
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13 views2 pages

Deconstruction vs. Structuralism Explained

The document discusses the tension between structuralism and deconstruction, highlighting Jacques Derrida's critique of structuralist thought, particularly Jonathan Culler's Structuralist Poetics. Culler advocates for a conservative structuralism that seeks to legitimize interpretative methods, while deconstruction challenges the notion of fixed structures in texts and the assumptions underpinning traditional literary analysis. Ultimately, deconstruction posits that meaning is not predetermined by mental structures but is instead fluid and contingent.

Uploaded by

Christina Imanuel
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

2 deconstruction: theory and practice

academic criticism to absorb and domesticate any new theory that


threatens its sovereign claim.
Deconstruction can be seen in part as a vigilant reaction against this
tendency in structuralist thought to tame and domesticate its own best
insights. Some of Jacques Derrida’s most powerful essays are devoted to
the task of dismantling a concept of ‘structure’ that serves to immobil-
ize the play of meaning in a text and reduce it to a manageable com-
pass. This process can be seen at work in the reception of a book like
Jonathan Culler’s Structuralist Poetics (1975), regarded (not without
reason) as a sound and authoritative guide to the complexities of struc-
turalist thought. Culler’s volume has been widely prescribed as student
reading by critics and teachers who otherwise show small sympathy
with current theoretical developments. Its appeal, one may fairly con-
jecture, lies partly in its commonsense dealing with problems of inter-
pretative method, and partly in its principled rejection of other, more
extreme kinds of theory which would question any such method.
Culler makes no secret of his aim to reconcile structuralist theory with
a naturalized or intuitive approach to texts. The proper task of theory,
in his view, is to provide a legitimating framework or system for
insights which a ‘competent’ reader should be able to arrive at and
check against her sense of relevance and fitness. Culler’s main claim for
the structuralist approach is that it offers a kind of regulative matrix for
perceptions that might otherwise seem merely dependent on the
critic’s personal flair or virtuosity.
His argument becomes strained when it tries to link this notion of
readerly ‘competence’ with an account of the manifold conventions –
or arbitrary codes – that make up a literate response. On the one hand
Culler appeals to what seems a loose extension of the linguist Noam
Chomsky’s argument: that linguistic structures are innately pro-
grammed in the human mind and operate both as a constraint upon
language and as a means of shared understanding. Thus Culler puts the
case that our comprehension of literary texts is conditioned by a simi-
lar ‘grammar’ of response which enables us to pick out the relevant
structures of meaning from an otherwise inchoate mass of linguistic
detail. On the other hand, he is obliged to recognize that literary texts,
unlike the sentences of everyday language, involve certain specialized
codes of understanding which have to be acquired and cannot be
roots: structuralism and new criticism 3
accounted for in terms of some universal grammar of response. Com-
petence in these terms is a matter of trained intelligence, of justifying
one’s reading of a text ‘by locating it within the conventions of plausi-
bility defined by a generalized knowledge of literature’ (Culler 1975, p.
127).
This is structuralism at its most conservative, an outlook that lends
support to traditional ideas of the text as a bearer of stable (if compli-
cated) meanings and the critic as a faithful seeker after truth in the text.
Culler is non-committal as to whether these interpretative structures
are unchangeably vested in the human mind or whether – as seems
more likely – they represent the force of established convention, a kind
of second nature to the practised reader. Whatever their status, they
clearly imply some manner of check or effective restraint upon the
freedoms of critical discourse. Hence Culler’s doubts (in the final chap-
ter of Structuralist Poetics) about the radical claims of those, like Derrida,
who seem bent upon dismantling the very bases of interpretative
method and meaning.
Deconstruction is avowedly ‘post-structuralist’ in its refusal to accept
the idea of structure as in any sense given or objectively ‘there’ in a
text. Above all, it questions the assumption – so crucial to Culler – that
structures of meaning correspond to some deep-laid mental ‘set’ or
pattern of response which determines the limits of intelligibility.
Theory, from Culler’s point of view, would be a search for invariant
structures or formal universals which reflect the very nature of human
intelligence. Literary texts (along with myths, music and other cultural
artefacts) yield up their meaning to a mode of analysis possessed of a
firm rationale because its sights are set on nothing less than a total
explanation of human thought and culture. Theory is assured of its
methodological bearings by claiming a deep, universal kinship with
the systems of meaning that it proposes to analyse.
Deconstruction, on the contrary, starts out by rigorously suspending
this assumed correspondence between mind, meaning and the concept
of method which claims to unite them.

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Culler claims that the main benefit of structuralist approaches is providing a regulative framework that organizes perceptions, saving them from appearing as mere reflections of a critic’s individual capability, thereby supporting a more objective critical method .

Culler attempts to reconcile structuralist theory with an intuitive approach by providing a legitimating framework for insights that a 'competent' reader should be able to independently verify. He tries to align reader competence with a Chomskyan concept of innate linguistic structures but faces challenges with the notion that specialized literary codes must be learned and cannot fully be explained by a universal grammar of response .

Derrida's approach to deconstruction challenges traditional structuralist thought by dismantling the concept of 'structure' which serves to stabilize and simplify the complex play of meaning in a text, thereby resisting the tendency of structuralism to domesticate innovative insights .

The document illustrates this tension by highlighting how structuralist thought, epitomized by works like Culler's, seeks stable interpretative frameworks, while deconstruction represented by Derrida, critiques this stability, emphasizing the fluidity and play in textual meaning that structuralism seeks to manage .

In Culler's theory, 'competence' involves a trained ability to interpret texts within established literary conventions. He relates this competence to a universal grammar of response, suggesting that our understanding is shaped by innate linguistic structures. However, he also acknowledges that literary texts require codes of understanding that must be learned beyond this universal grammar .

A 'competent' reader, per Culler, is someone who can align their reading with literary conventions due to trained intelligence, allowing them to justify their interpretations within a widely accepted framework. This competency facilitates interpretations that are coherent with structuralist methods and the conventional understanding of texts .

Culler faces the challenge of integrating reader competence with literary conventions, as he must reconcile the idea of inherent linguistic structures with the necessity of acquiring interpretative codes specific to literature, which cannot be wholly explained by universal grammar .

Critics and teachers may prescribe Culler's 'Structuralist Poetics' because of its commonsense treatment of interpretative methods and its rejection of more extreme theories that challenge these methods, offering a structured approach to understanding literature that aligns with more traditional educational purposes .

Culler's approach seeks a middle ground by advocating for a structured framework informed by structuralist principles that accommodate intuitive insights, thereby eschewing both radical critiques of conventional methods and methods purely dependent on critic's personal flair .

Culler's notion of readerly 'competence' posits an inherent understanding akin to Chomskyan innate structures, which helps in identifying literary meaning, while recognizing that additional specialized literary codes require learning. This balance questions the singular view that comprehension derives solely from inherent grammar .

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