DECONSTRUCTION

Important Points: Binary oppositions are used in texts to construct meaning and value (man/animal, male/female). These oppositions do not co-exist peacefully. It is a violent hierarchy, one of the two terms is always dominant Exposes how these oppositions work but does not seek to eradicate oppositions. Believes that these oppositions are necessary to produce sense. Mark their difference, undecidability, and eternal interplay. Example: the word “house” derives its meaning from how it differs from “shed,” “mansion,” “hotel,” and “building.”

Important Points Continued: Derrida “there is no such thing as out-of-the-text” which means that context is an integral part of the text. Everything is in the text. Disregard author, focus on text and reader. Genesis (essential mode of creation or movement) and structure (systems, complexes, or static configurations) exist in a state of tension Refuse word “is.” Do not believe in absolutes.

How to do: Understand intended or accepted meaning of a text. Find ways that text doesn’t conform to stated or accepted meaning. Find tensions and contradictions within text, looking for ideas that don’t match other ideas in text. Look for text’s assumptions. Look for what presents itself as normal, natural, apparent. Also look for binary oppositions (gay/straight). Demonstrate how binaries and hierarchies break down under scrutiny by showing that the text’s ideas of normal, natural, apparent is actually none of those things or by showing how one thing (master, heterosexuality) needs another (slave, homosexuality) to define itself. Without both, neither makes sense.