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Faith Green & Josh D-Harris Deconstructionist Insist that literary works do not yield fixed, single meanings. No absolute knowledge about a subject; language can never say what we intend to mean Any idea or statement that insists on being understood separately can ultimately be “deconstructed” to reveal its relations and connections to contradictory and opposite meanings . In contrast to formalists (New Critics), deconstructionists try to show how a close examination of the language in a text inevitably reveals conflicting , contradictory impulses that break down its unity . Signifier is the written and sound construction that makes up words Signified is the meaning of the word. Looks at the ambiguities in signifiers, and states that there can be many different signified meanings for a single signifier Deconstructionist focus on gaps and ambiguities that reveal a text’s instability and indeterminacy Analyzes competing meanings within the text instead of trying to resolve them into unified wholes

Deconstructionist Strategies

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the history of literature

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Page 1: Deconstructionist Strategies

Faith Green & Josh D-Harris

Deconstructionist Insist that literary works do not yield fixed, single meanings.

No absolute knowledge about a subject; language can never say what we

intend to mean

Any idea or statement that insists on being understood separately can

ultimately be “deconstructed” to reveal its relations and connections to

contradictory and opposite meanings.

In contrast to formalists (New Critics), deconstructionists try to show how a

close examination of the language in a text inevitably reveals conflicting,

contradictory impulses that break down its unity.

Signifier is the written and sound construction that makes up words

Signified is the meaning of the word.

Looks at the ambiguities in signifiers, and states that there can be many

different signified meanings for a single signifier

Deconstructionist focus on gaps and ambiguities that reveal a text’s

instability and indeterminacy

Analyzes competing meanings within the text instead of trying to resolve

them into unified wholes

Focus on how a variety of possible readings are generated by the elements

of a text

Concerned with the use of language such as diction, tone, metaphor, symbol,

and etc, have only provisional meanings and not definite.

Search for ways to question and extend the meanings of a text.

Page 2: Deconstructionist Strategies

Take away from the text because you are looking for what’s not really there

(something like word play)

Criticism uses Binary Oppositions to look at what is not in a story

The two parts of Binary Opposition is a dominant and non-

dominant(oppressed)

(i.e.)