All I can say Lois Tyson is, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
The most helpful book in the world. Derrida, Deconstruction, Differance (with an A!) no problem!
Not only does this book explain things clearly, but it gives both very simple examples (colours of the rainbow) and also very complex examples (deconstructing "The Great Gatsby"). So before you get to Fitzgerald you understand the concept with colours first. It's so much easier to deconstruct Gatsby when I understand how to deconstruct the colour red. - Red is red because we know it's not blue or green or yellow or any other colour, because we know what it's not we know what it is, this is the difference, the delay in our understanding of the colour red as we process in our mind all the colours it is not, is the deferment of understanding. Combine those two process and you get Differance (with an A!). Then think of all the concepts that red makes you think of (blood, stop, revenge, etc) and that is part of the never ending meaning that the colour red can have. The binary opposites (red compared to green for example) can show the ideology of the text by showing which one is privileged. With the simple concepts of red and green as stop and go, if red is given more importance in a text than the act of stopping, halting, hesitating is the dominant ideology.
Now, apply that to Gatsby, a play, Marxist theory, etc. and you are doing very complex deconstruction!!! Piece of cake!
???
No comments:
Post a Comment