Deconstruction Literary Theory | Jennifer Hedgecock | TEDxSaddlebackCollege

I want to go back to the theme you know so far for the TED talk and that it is to construct to deconstruct to rebuild and so when you look at the order in which that appears it seems to be very logical but really there is also something suspiciously irrational about the way that it appears so to be more specific why would we construct something only to deconstruct it later on to take it apart what is the purpose in building it and so I go back to 1966 and on October 21st the famous French philosopher Jacques Derrida had given a speech there a lecture there and in the audience at John Hopkins University there are very famous professors philosophers there who were also present and this included Roland Bart Michel Foucault and and of course Paul Daman and so they're listening to him speak and he is making this shocking declaration and it goes back to that point you know that has been discussed so far and and what he says is that there is absolutely no meaning language has no meaning that a structure has no meaning to it so what he's addressing and going back to is to the late 19th century philosopher Ferdinand Saskia who's a another French philosopher but his point was on structuralism and his argument is that well you know you have to have a structure that only a structure that we produce is something that also produces meaning and dari da this many years later is arguing that no it doesn't and again this becomes very shocking because if you don't have any meaning then what really is a purpose to life you know so and it gets into now what specifically is deconstruction what exactly does that mean and he is arguing that the way in which you find meaning is that you have to here's something apart you have to take it apart you have to break it apart in order to discover and understand what that meaning is so I go to the use of language you know that that words mean something to us they have and they can have an emotional impact on us you know depending upon what that word is but also it relies quite a bit on what our experience is and how we attach our experience to the signification of that particular word but what dairy dies arguing is this is that language is not fixed there is no finality to a particular word what Sarah had argued was this is that a word is a unit and when we string words together to form a sentence that it constructs rules so again we have a certain rule that is constructed by by language by by words themselves but now let's look at it this way and try to understand exactly what dairy dog was arguing here so I can take a word like peace and what dairy dog claims is that that word has it doesn't have one signified meaning it has several signified meanings that can continue on for an eternity so again the dictionary definition of the word peace is freedom from a disturbance okay fine but now you take the word freedom well what exactly does freedom mean and freedom means the power and the right to express my own idea to take action to think independently okay so now what does a word power mean power means the ability to influence others or to influence behavior alright now we go on to influence well what does influence mean influence means the development of a certain behavior the effect of a behavior to have an effect on one's behavior what does effect mean it means change as a result of a cause it can go on forever you know so so again if we go back to that question so how is it that understanding how language can be signified has a string of signifiers how does that lead to deconstruction how is it that I can actually understand meaning by taking something apart and so I want to reference the book by Toni Morrison Sula and you know the book starts around right after World War one and you have the leading character Shadrach and the opening scene is him coming back from Europe and he is completely shell-shocked in the home to which he returns is medallion Ohio which is a small town in the Midwest and it is a community of african-americans and they live in a section of medallion that is called the bottom but the bottom really isn't at the bottom you know that area it's actually on a hilltop but that hilltop is very arid there's not a lot of growth around that particular part but it's called the bottom and once again we go back to you what does what do words mean you know what does language mean and when shadrach comes back he is shell-shocked in his way his method of dealing with this and trying to assimilate back into his community is by having what is called national suicide day and what he does is he comes out with a sign one day a year and he asked anyone who wants to commit suicide to come follow him along and this really unravels that community you know the first time that it happens but then as time goes on as years progress it becomes kind of almost like a convention within their culture you know that that again they arrange their if they're trying to plan out something that week well it's close to the national suicide day so I know we have to take care of it in advance you know it becomes kind of part of their institution in other words the actual meaning of suicide in that particular community it would be beneath them you know that they are not victims and so you know and that is a signifier of suicide but they turn that word around and the way in which that word is used within that community as they are rebelling against convention they are rebelling again it's a signified meaning of suicide as the story progresses it really focuses on two young girls now and Sula and they are best friends from the time that they meet as small children and then a tragic event happens where Sula who comes from a very kind of unconventional way of life you know her mother is unmarried she grows up with her grandmother her grandmother actually had her lay cut off by a train so she could collect the insurance money to help support her family whereas Nell comes from a home in which it is the epitome of convention to parents that have been together since it's for a long time they have a normal family life in terms of again the emphasis on school and education and and it appears on the surface that everything is exactly as it should be according to the nuclear family but that is not how sulla lives these two girls who come from very different backgrounds they become best friends and on one of those afternoons when they're coming home from school Sula picks up a small child and starts swinging him around as a way of playing with them and they are near a river and Sula unfortunately lets the child slip out of her hands and the child ends up in a river and drowns and they basically the two girls stand there and they watch them drowned they are paralyzed they don't know what to do they forget the event and they leave the scene and after that their relationship is never the same so eventually when they become young women it is Nell who settles down and gets married and has children and stays in medallion Ohio but at the age of 18 adisyl who takes often leaves and she goes to the big city and she has this other life that she creates in ten years later all of a sudden there she is she shows up back in medallion and she is dressed to the hilt and there is there is a lot of suspicion that revolves around her because she doesn't look like a thirty year old she looks like she's still young and she's not married and she doesn't have any children and she is coming back and of course all the townspeople are very alert and aware of what she was like when she was a child you know that when again when she was bullied she did not react in fear she reacted by taking her finger and cutting it off and telling her bullies that if you think I can do this to myself just think what I can do to you but it's always a reaction of fear and so so when she comes back to medallion she moves in with her grandmother ewa and and Eva's questioning her how come you're not married how come you don't have any children how come you know how come you never had babies and Sulis response is this she says I don't want to make other people I want to make myself and again this you know by this time it's 1937 you know very different culturally and socially compared to how we live now in the 21st century when you think about the roles of men and women you know women are not pursuing more independent lives at that point so she and Nell are reunited and they start spending time together and as things turn out Sooey ends up having an affair with Nell's husband Jude and Jude leaves and Jude never comes back and sulla by that point has already had a bad reputation of taking other women's husbands and having affairs with them but unlike her mother who did the same thing sulla does a cruelest thing of all when she has an affair with them she leaves them and she never bothers with them again and so we go to her name sulla and her last name is peace and when we look at her behavior in her actions it is something that is defined as discord in chaos you know we automatically as a reader assume that she is bringing chaos to other people's lives but that's not in fact what happens you know and again it goes back to that question of language you know how could a character that is regarded as being purely evil you know bring about peace within that community and it is because that when she rejects those husbands they go back home to their wives and their wives instead of filling disregarded and dismissed and cheated on they start feeling compassion for their husbands and they start taking care of them like they never did before and the husbands end up becoming better fathers to their children they don't drink they get jobs they make money they participate within the house what sulla does is she ironically establishes order within that community you know again it is to take something apart and to understand internally how it actually works and how it operates and you can only understand that when you examine each component and you begin to carefully put it back together to rebuild but Sula ends up making the biggest mistake that she could make she violates her own code and she ends up falling in love with someone and he is the one who eventually leaves her and she is wise enough and experienced enough to realize that he's never coming back and at that point she gives up and she ends up dying and it is Nell who comes and visits her before she departs this world you know and even when we get to death you know Morrison makes us it really important and interesting claim and it is that you know death does not happen by accident life happens by accident but death is something that is very deliberate and we see that with her it becomes her choice you know that that one love affair and that one event becomes so powerfully moving and so emotional that you can't recover from it neither emotionally or spiritually or physically and she's gone and so we look at you know and and and I guess I want to close on this and you know thinking about a novel like that and also thinking about you know with with all these different you know social examples you know that have been discussed and and perhaps you know for a long time at the academic level you know we will take those you know very complex assumptions and we try to understand how they apply to the social order how they apply to conventions and sometimes they don't go very well examined you know there is something that is left out and perhaps it is a process of deconstructing something you know and in the use of that word I want to use a different word in this case it is to demystify it to understand it to demystify it in other words to to identify the mystery and therefore it no longer is mysterious it is familiar to us and there is no way of being you know familiar unless we're actually willing to explore and so you know and especially if we depend on convention too much you know going back to the character now Nell depends on those conventions because she honestly believes that's what's going to make her a good person and what we see is that it leads to a very limited perspective a very narrow view and what we hear today is that we we have to do away with those narrow perspectives maybe be more conscientious about how we use language and with that if if if we look at ourselves and that is you know as a student that maybe the purpose is more than just simply learning and becoming more advanced within a specialized field but I think what it urges us to do is to try to live a more examined life thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 16,611

Rating: 4.7950664 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Humanities, Progress, Social Change

Id: rvBAAmona9E

Length: 14min 43sec (883 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 12 2019