Post-Structuralism: An Indian Preview - Igcollege.org

Proceedings of National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and Literature , Jan. 27-28, 2012, Nanded
structuralism is not to provide the
interpretation of single texts, but to make
explicit, in a quasi-scientific way, the tacit
grammar (the system of rules and codes)
that governs the forms and meaning of all
literary productions. As Jonathan Culler
put it in his lucid exposition, the aim of
structuralist criticism is “to construct a
poetics which stands to literature as
linguistics stands to language.”
(Structuralist Poetics, 1975, P.257)
However, in the structuralist view,
what had been called a literary ‘work’
becomes a texi; that is, a mode of writing
constituted by a play of internal elements
according to specifically literary
conventions and codes. These factors may
generate an illusion of reality, but have no
truth-value, nor even any reference to a
reality existing outside the literary system
itself.
Post-structuralism is a
continuation and simultaneous rejection of
structuralism- not only literary
structuralism but even more so the
anthropological structuralism. Poststructuralism
is generally some of the
major claims of structuralism, and since it
has its origins in the second half of the
1960s, when literary structuralism is still
developing, it does indeed make sense to
see them as two forks of one and the same
broadly anti-humanist and linguistically
oriented river. According to Derride,
Saussure’s theory of sign consisting of
signifier and signified is another version of
the traditional concept of speech and
writing. As Derrida states it:
The notion of the sign always
implies within itself the
distinction between signifier and
signified, even if they are
distinguished simply as the two
faces of one and the same leaf.
The notion remains therefore
within the heritage of that
logocentrism which is also
phonocentrism: ‘absolute
proximity of voice and being, of
voice and the meaning of being
and the ideality of meaning. 2
In this way Derrida discards these
three disciplines-metaphysics, linguistics
and structuralism-as they have treated
writing as secondary to speech. He calls
this concept of writing as ‘vulgar concept’.
Derrida’s intention is to liberate language
and criticism from the totalizing and
totalitarian influence of metaphysics.
It is very noteworthy that
Derrida’s new concept of writing is based
on three complex words: ‘difference’,
‘trace’, and ‘arche-writing.’ Difference
means two actions: differing and
deferring. Differing is the one not being
another. It is spatial. Deferring is
something being delayed or postponed. It
is temporal. According to Derrida each
sign performs double function differing
and deferring. Hence, the structure of the
sign is conditioned by differing and
deferring and not by the signifier and the
signified. This means that a sign is
something that is unlike another sign and
something that is not the sign. Each sign
differs from another sign and it has its
power of deferment, the capacity to
postpone.
Post-structuralism is unthinkable
without structuralism. As I have already
suggested, it continues structuralism’s
strongly anti-humanist perspective and it
closely follows structuralism in its belief
that language is the key to our
understanding of ourselves and the world.
Still, although it continues its antihumanism
and its focus on language, poststructuralism
simultaneously undermines
structuralism by thoroughly questioning-
‘deconstructing’-some of its major
assumptions and the methods that derive
from those assumptions. Post-
106 PLTL-2012: ISBN 978-81-920120-0-1