 Welcome to this lecture on Poststructuralist Literary Criticism. This is NPTEL, the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning, a joint venture by the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. We are in module 4 of our series of lectures, collectively entitled English Language and Literature. Module 4 as you know is devoted to literary criticism. The last lecture was devoted to structuralism and structuralist literary criticism and today's lecture is on poststructuralism. There are obviously several texts that you may want to consult as far as poststructuralism in general and poststructuralist literary criticism in particular are concerned. However, for beginners, I would recommend a useful book Beginning Theory by Peter Barry. You may also look out particularly for the construction Barbara Johnson's well-known book, The Critical Difference. As with other lectures, I shall be taking extracts and referring to a couple of other texts as well in a bit to explain what poststructuralist criticism is all about. Well, let us begin before talking about the relation between poststructuralism and structuralism. Let us begin by looking at what Chris Barker in his Sage Handbook of Cultural Studies says about poststructuralism and let me read from him. The prefix post clearly suggests after, thus poststructuralism is after structuralism in that the terms of this philosophical stream are ones that involve both the absorption of key ideas from structuralism and a critique and transformation of them. So, post is not simply a temporal prefix. Post here means that we only take off or take off from structuralism retaining some of its key ideas and at the same time critiquing those ideas and attempting to transform them as we shall see in a while. From a philosophical point of view as one critic has mentioned here, poststructuralism looks at knowledge and problematizes it. Knowledge is not a question of true discovery, but of the construction of interpretations about the world that are taken to be true. In so far as the idea of truth has an historical purchase, it is the consequence of power that is of whose interpretations come to count as truth. So, the two important words here are a interpretation and b power. Poststructuralism like post enlightenment thinking for instance postmodernism does not believe in what we call truth with a capital T. Poststructuralism says that there are many perhaps innumerable interpretations that one may give or one may bear upon a particular text. These interpretations are to use a word, a common word in poststructuralism are slippery. They are not about the true discovery of what a literary text is about. Poststructuralism says that in this variety or in these if I may use the word in these plethora of interpretations those interpretations have a ring of truth about them or are considered to be true interpretations which have to do with power. It says here that it is as a consequence of power that interpretations come to be true. For example, it is not that it happens only in poststructuralism. For instance, if you go back and look at the criticism that was there before or prior to feminist literary criticism, those criticisms although those critical ways of critical analysis or critical tools counted as true. When we had feminism as a critical methodology, we found that feminism gave a different interpretation of the text and challenged the hegemonic and masculinist way of reading text where there is an erasure of the woman. So, we move on and we then understand that poststructuralism has to do of course with interpretation, language games and power. It is well within the linguistic term that was inaugurated by structuralism and understands ways of talking, understands interpretations, discussions and analysis as language games. You know that language games is a term that comes from the philosopher Wittgenstein. So, there are ways of talking For instance, to put it very simply, there are ways in which we talk when we are in a certain scenario. For instance, when we are talking to our seniors, there is a way in which we speak. When we talk, when we go to a restaurant and when we order a meal, there is a certain it is a different way in which we speak. So, instead of talking about truths then Wittgenstein talked about language games. There are different ways of talking in language. So, poststructuralism also falls within this kind of, within this orientation of thinking, laying more importance not in one way of reading a text, but on interpretation, language games and power. So, when we, if we quickly go back to our lecture on structuralism, we have found in the last lecture that within structuralism, meaning is always differential and relational. Poststructuralism also shares these aspects of meaning, meaning being differential in a system, meaning being, meaning emanating in a, you know, in relation to other units in the system. However, there is a difference. Remember we had said right in the beginning that poststructuralism critiques is not only after coming after structuralism and retaining some of some structuralism score concepts, but also it is a critique and a transformation of those concepts. In structuralism, we saw that meaning was basically an outcome of the organization of science and there was a certain stability. These structures in structuralism gave us certain stability of meaning. Now, if you talk about the revision and the reorientation or the, you know, the transformation that is brought about by poststructuralism, then this is where we must first look at. Stability is true structures. Poststructuralism critiques radically the very stability of the structure that is celebrated, so to speak by structuralism. In a way, we may say that poststructuralism questions the structurality of the structure. You follow? What did we find in structuralism? That we can have, you know, meaning in a text. We can have meaning in a text by looking at the differential relationship between or among words, among different units of a text. There are certain codes for instance given, the five codes given by Rola Bart. There are certain codes by which meaning can be teased out from a text and the text is a structure which is more or less stable. In poststructuralism, particularly through the work of the French philosopher Jean Therida, we will find that the stability is an illusion, replaced by another word which is the slipperiness of the text. So, from this is the core, the radical break as far as structuralism is concerned when we talk about poststructuralism. Therefore, we may say that in poststructuralism, whereas in structuralism that is meaning is arrived at, meaning is possible by looking at the structure and studying the text through codes. In poststructuralism, we find that the meaning of a text is endlessly deferred. This is the word to defer or we may say to postpone. The meaning of a text is always postponed. Why? This is what we need to understand. Now, if you understand why it is considered in poststructuralism that meaning is forever postponed, then you would have understood one of the core claims of poststructuralism. Here we have a very important word given to us by Jean Therida that is deference. This is a word that collapses two words to differ and to defer. The differing part we have already found in structuralism, but Therida adds another component to this difference which together calls deference that is to defer that is again as I said in the previous slide through the previous slide the postponing of meaning. Now, what we will do is we will quickly look at another insight given to us and this is by Pramod K. Nyer in his useful book, An Introduction to Cultural Studies. Let us read and I shall explain this. Nyer says that thus reading or interpretation is the movement through the chain of signs seeking a temporary meaning from or at each halt. Even if there is a feeling of having arrived at a meaning in poststructuralism we have to admit or poststructuralism needs us to admit that there is only a temporary closure of meaning of the text. Because of the slipperiness of the sign which I shall come to in a while because of the slipperiness of the sign meaning is very temporary and in the next instance the meaning is gone or the meaning is deferred to have another meaning come up. So, then he says this suggests that every signifier that is a word or a sign leads not to a stable n signified, but to more signifiers. Now, what did we see in structuralism? In structuralism we saw that for instance these letters T R E and E or the syllable tree brings to our mind the concept of the concept of tree not a real tree, but the concept of the psychological impression as Fadinundi Sassour would call it psychological impression of tree. We also agreed that a tree may mean different things in different circumstances. For instance if you are doing a tree diagram sitting underneath a tree the tree diagram in your laptop and I come along and say that that is a beautiful tree. So, there is an ambiguity here the tree may refer to the tree under which you are sitting or it may refer to the tree diagram. So, meaning is slippery even in structuralism, but structuralism held that there is difference in context but one would eventually understand that the tree is referred to here is either of this. In post structuralism however, it is a little different. Since meaning comes about owing to a system of difference it not only differs, but the meaning is also deferred. Why? Because every signifier carries, this is the word carries a cause from other signifiers. So that meaning is never arrived that incomplete totality or complete certainty. Do you follow? So this suggests as Pramod K Nair says this suggests that every signifier that is word or sign leads not to a stable N signified, but to more signifiers. This implies that meaning is never fully graspable and the final meaning is always postponed or as we saw a while ago deferred. Because words carry the echoes of other words leading to a final ambiguity. So this is also called what Derrida calls the aporia that the impossibility of any meaning for that matter that is called the slipperiness of language. Derrida also uses a very important phrase which he says that there are in language there are no pure signifieds. The signifier signified which we found was very neatly drawn out in structuralism by Ferdinand de Sousor. What happens here is the signified can never be known in its totality because there are always you know because sign is always under erasure. Under erasure by the fact that it is in a relation with other terms in the system fine. Therefore, these are non essentialist and non ontological categories and finally, we understand that language is socially constructed and language is never to be fully grasped. Therefore, we can look at the text as a play of signifiers not allowing any stable meaning. Now, I hope you have understood this text is seen as a play of signifiers and if you look at this slide here there are no in language there are no pure or stable signifieds. So, if you have a term a signifier and you feel that you have understood what it signifies Derrida and other post structuralist would say that no there is no stability in the signified because it is always and it is already too meshed in with other terms in the system. In that sense a text also is open to innumerable interpretations of words. Now, let me put a caveat here this is in I mean in no way is Derrida saying that there should be an irresponsible play of meaning in a text that nor is he saying that you know you can do anything with the text and you can give any ridiculous interpretation of a text. What he is asking us to understand is the very nature of language itself. He says that language by its very nature is not stable. There is always if I may use a word a contamination so to speak with by other words in the system. Do you understand? So, in a way if you look at it you know we do not have to deconstruct a text because of the nature of the relation between the signifier and signified in post structuralism vis-a-vis structuralism. We find that meaning is not at all possible in the first place. So, the text really is already deconstructed you do not have to perform deconstruction on the text. The text comes to you incomplete the text comes to you you know amenable to several and different interpretations. So, we are not to say that this interpretation is correct. If somebody says that this interpretation or a particular interpretation is correct then that is according to post structuralist an act of power an act of hegemony an act of trying to pin down the text when actually there are so many other interpretations available. Remember this the detractors of post structuralism would always or mostly think that you know what Derrida has done is played a sort of dirty trick on us. The kind of trick that a charlatan would do in fact charlatan is a word that is used against has been used against Derrida. But the point is what he is he is saying here is you know what he calls the metaphysics of presence. He says that entire ascent philosophy is sort of you know we have a user word played by the metaphysics of presence. The how should I say the privileging we saw binary oppositions in the last lecture. He says the privileging of one part of the binary opposition over another. Let us say man, woman, culture, nature, strength weakness, light and darkness. There is always a privileging of one side of the binary scheme. And that is why he says that this is you know this is a way of thinking in western philosophy that has to be deconstructed. And language by itself shows that it is already slippery and not graspable in its totality. Therefore, we may use terms like deferral, substitution and supplementation. We will not go into this because there is a lot more to be talked about. Therefore, a text on look at this slide here text is therefore always any text for the matter not just literary text. A text is therefore always unstable and forever recreated. You may create, recreate the meaning of a text. There was a recreation or there is a recreation of Hamlet when you for instance when you talk from a feminist point that too is a recreation from a feminist point of view. When you talk about Gertrude when you foreground Gertrude and Ophelia and not Hamlet and Horatio or Hamlet senior or even Claudius. So, in that sense there is already you know foregrounding of the other part of the binary of male and female characters. That also is now therefore, you can have a hybrid way of you know a hybrid methodology say deconstructionist or feminist deconstructionist methodology. So, the text therefore, is forever recreated by again as I said by refusing to accept the fact that a signifier means or can come to a can refer to a totally or fully graspable meaning in its signifier. Because of this gap between the signifier and the signifier there is enormous political potential in deconstructionist methodology to intervene in accepted and established power saturated meanings of text. Therefore, interpretation which we saw was a core concept in post structuralism. Interpretation is therefore, shifting and interpretation is contingent. Upon circumstances it is contingent upon political orientations, political views. So, you may create different interpretations and meanings of a particular text depending on the contingent situation that you are in. This is I would say this is a tremendously liberating way of doing literary criticism. Perhaps those who you know those who are quite radical detractors of post structuralism it could be as Nair says in one of his books Pramod Nair says in one of his books that probably you are you are scared of losing authority when we have different meanings or meanings that are different from your interpretation clamoring for attention and establishing a different reading of a text. This is similar to what you know you find in Michel Foucault another post structuralist when he says that meaning is always regulated by power. Meaning is not to be seen in terms of a chain of eternal deferrals only according to Foucault now here look at this. According to Foucault there is no point in you know finding innumerable meanings in a text. He says well what is the point of you know then it becomes actually play you know in that sense of like a game for you know for Michel Foucault. He says there is no point in only substituting one meaning with another meaning right. He says it is most important he says he do this but it is most important again to show how these different meanings come from different sources of power or the absence of power. Do you understand? There in Foucault gives us a caution you know note of caution sorry note of caution that there is no point in you know in playing a game of how many different meanings I can find out from a text. The job is a you know a more important a more significant one that is of finding out how you know meaning is always regulated by power by systems of power in society ok. Now quickly if we you know look at the attitude of post structuralism and structuralism towards language and you will I think this is from Peter I have taken it from Peter Barry Barry's book the attitude to language in structuralism is this. Structuralists think that the world is constructed through language and that we do not have access to reality other than through the linguistic medium. You remember from our last lecture that structuralism says that language constructs reality language is the only way through which we can apprehend reality and there are obviously chances that we can never apprehend the whole of reality why because it comes to us through the linguistic medium right. Post structuralism the post structuralists assert that they do not have full control over the medium of language linguistic anxiety this is a very nice way of putting it linguistic anxiety is a keynote of post structuralism. Now look at this again we do not have access to reality says you know say the post structuralist we do not have access to reality except through language ok. So, fine we may not know what reality is in its totality but at least we know that we have created a reality for us based on language which is structured a system that is structured where meaning emanates from differential relationship between the units or sorry among the units ok. But you see how this break is made as when we come to post structuralism post structuralism also says that yes our understanding of reality is largely the work of language ok. But they add this very important point here which is that this very language that we talk about is something that is something over which we do not have control even if we human beings have made language even if we have constructed language we have no control over the language. Now why we call what I said just while ago that is because of the very nature of language ok. The very fact as Zerida argues that there is they can never be any pure signifies ok. Because it is already you know it is because the meaning of any term comes about only in relationship to other terms how can we have a pure signified ok. Pure impure in the sense that it does not have an look at this this is most important it does not have an ontological meaning about it. You follow the meaning of chair is or the word chair gives us a meaning or psychological impression of chair not because there is something cherish about a chair ok. But because it is different from other objects of furniture right. So do you follow this therefore post structuralist would say that yes we understand the you know it when the structuralist tell us that reality is apprehendable only through language but let us remind ourselves that this very medium is a problematic one ok. So the word the term linguistic anxiety fine. So there is an anxiety even as you are using language there is always this anxiety and high suspicion that you can never that the meaning of a word or meaning of a sentence and even of a text is never to be the final one ok. It is forever in a state of deference that is it is forever differing and it is forever deferred. I hope you understood this ok. Linguistic anxiety is the key note of post structuralism. So we again now look at what the critic Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak talks about when she says that a word is always under erasure right from this French phrase which means under erasure to write the word cross it out and then print both word and deletion. For instance you write print both word. So you you write print both word and deletion you write this at the same time you have a you have marked it. So this means that you have written it but you know that because you know you are trying to show you are trying to demonstrate that you understand that these words print both word and deletion do not have any do not have their corresponding pure signifies. And even as a string of words it may not have a or it does not have rather a pure signified or a constant meaning ok. So to write the word cross it out and then print both word and deletion. This part that we have you know we have struck out it simply you know means or it is as I said an attempt to show that I am using words but I know that these words are under erasure. I know that their meanings are always deferred. So this is you know way of showing you know showing that words do not have complete or full meanings ok. So since the word is inaccurate right it is crossed out and since it is necessary it remains legible. So you have the words there at the same time you cross it out or you cross the words out to show that they are necessary and at the same time they are inaccurate. Do you understand? It is not to say that every time we write we are going to also cross out the words and keep them under erasure just to show that look I am saying this but I know that my words do not convey you know they are always under erasure. This is one way of just to show you know so perhaps in a pictorial way ok what exactly is meant by this deferral of meaning or the erasure or meaning being under erasure right. So I would refer to Barbara Johnson's the critical difference and I will quickly read from her in order to enrich what we are talking about. In the critical difference published in 1981 Barbara Johnson says that the term deconstruction denotes a particular kind of practice. It is the kind of practice in reading and thereby a method of criticism and mode of analytical inquiry. Many would say that deconstructive criticism is no criticism how can it be a critical methodology when it itself talks about the deferral of meaning. So a deconstructive critical piece by itself is a failure because deconstruction says that well no meaning is final. Now that is I would say is taking it to you know quite is illogical you know illogical extreme in the sense that deconstruction does not say that because language is slippery because there is linguistic anxiety that we should stop talking at all right. It knows that language is the only medium as structural is to but it also cautions us that that medium is fraught with the lack of final meaning. So it is pointless really it is rather you know what we call arguing at you know at infinitum or arguing even what was that term arguing in you know in complete absurdity. That deconstruction should not say anything about the text because after all they say that well words have no meaning that is not our point here. A point is to understand that the deconstructionist will show you a different way a different say a different philosophical stance altogether. So therefore, Johnson rightly says that well deconstruction is a kind of critical practice. It is a method she even goes on to call it a method of criticism and a mode of analytical enquiry right. So, there is no reason to just throw the baby out with the bath water and to say that well deconstructionist have no place. They are saying something and as critics like Johnson and Spivak say we ought to listen. So let us read on the term sorry deconstruction is not synonymous with destruction very beautifully put. They do not the deconstructionist do not destroy post structuralism does not destroy the text. So, we have to understand to deconstruct is a not a negative activity please understand this. To deconstruct is not a destructive ability right or a destructive tool right. So, deconstruction is more like dismantling you know when you dismantle something you do not destroy it right you can put it back together. So, deconstruction is not synonymous with destruction. However, it is in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word analysis which etymologically means to undo. So, we have to understand deconstruction in terms of undoing a text remember I said in terms of dismantling. So, dismantling undoing is not the same as destruction which etymologically means to undo a virtual synonym for to deconstruct. If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading says Johnson it is not the text this is very important and I think she has put it so beautifully. If anything is destroyed at all then it is certainly not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another. So, she says deconstruction destroys the myth destroys the illusion that there is only one dominant way of looking at a text or one dominant mode of signifying right a word signifies and to the words together that is a text text also signifies. So, if you say the text a means meaning a then we have to understand that behind that is or rather that itself that pronouncement is an act of power right an act of hegemony. You are trying to sort of impose your meaning your signification of a text over all others. So, if anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading it is not the text, but the claim of claim to unequivocal domination of the mode of signifying over or one mode of signifying over another. A deconstructive reading is a reading which analyzes the specificity of a text critical difference from not other text from itself. So, beautifully put I you know we should say that a deconstructive reading analyzes a text critical difference or you could say a text critical distance from its own self that what it is perpating according to you according to the reader. If there is no reader there is no text in that sense in deconstructive criticism what a deconstructive reading does is to show that what meaning is perpetrated to come from a text there is always a gap why there is a gap because the words do not have pure signifies or pure reference. Do you follow Jonathan color another critic has this to say deconstruction if it is of any consequence is not reducible to a specialized set of discursive procedures it is a method alright, but you cannot say that this is there is one way or set of procedures a set of tools that you can use. While certainly deconstruction is not anti methodological neither could be called a discourse on method as such Derrida says it is also at the very least a way of taking a position in its work of analysis concerning the political and institutional structures that make possible and govern our practices our competencies and our performances. Remember if somebody tells you that this is just a linguistic tone and that you are in what is famously called the prison house of language remember the deconstruction and other schools other methods in post structuralism also has a clearly political angle to it as critics like Derrida would argue that deconstruction is not just clinical method of showing how meaning disappears or showing you know how there are no pure signifies or that the text destroys itself or deconstruct itself or that the text is already deconstructed that is one part of the philosophical explanation or philosophical you know orientation of deconstruction the other is clearly political and deconstruction seeks to show us that any stable meaning or any you know any demand or sorry claim over over one you know meaning or set of meanings is always an act of part. So, it is also a way of taking a position on a text which he called reading against the grain of the text reading against the texture of a text reading against the obvious conventional so to speak spontaneous meaning of a text. We believe in deconstruction that we are trained to read in a certain way and our culture and culture presumptions and biases also kind of give make us do spontaneous readings of a text by eliciting certain signifies for a signifier what Derrida says read against the text deconstructed in a bit to show how it has been constructed by language and how it cannot reach one particular meaning. So, therefore, it is also as it says here concern with the political and institutional structures that make possible and govern our practices these govern our practices our competencies and our performances even our performances on a text even the analysis you do on a text are tied to our practices within certain institutional power base structures political structures that make us you know seemingly or give us seemingly spontaneous which we feel are correct responses to a text. So, these are some I would think some of the cautionary or points of caution that post structuralism very rightly gives us then as I said about how a text is already dismantled this comes from Hillis Miller and where he says that deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but the demonstration that it has already dismantled itself where formalism seeks to demonstrate that a work has essential unity because or sorry despite the paradoxes and irony that create its inner tension deconstruction seeks to show that a text has no organic unity or basis for presenting meanings only as it says here a series of conflicting significations this is very important. Formalism also belongs to a particular way of looking at the text a new criticism also belongs to that way of looking at the text looking at the words on the text how is deconstruction different deconstruction is different according to J. Hillis Miller that it refuses a totality it refuses an organic unity to the text and it says that they are only conflicting significations of a text and that the fact that the text is already sort of you know already impure in that sense and sense of pure meanings not having pure meanings view the very act of reading has to show the conflicting interpretations or the conflicting significations in a text that is essentially the job of or you could say the method of a deconstructive critic to show the conflicting signifies or the conflicting processes of signification in a text and to deny the text a single meaning. Therefore, deconstruction as has been shown is not really a form of critique according to some it according to others it is not a method it is not a theory it is not a discourse or an operation it is a reiteration of the fact that the text is already dismantled that the text is already deconstructed. So, therefore, you know it goes against what Derrida calls a logo centrism or the metaphysics of presence in western philosophy and it says that there is no logos or there is no core or essence or truth there is no center the moment you have a center or a core or an essence or a truth you know we end up privileging one reading over the other because if you have a core then you always have something on the margins something in the periphery. So, any act of saying that this is the core of a text this is the essence of a text is an act of power and it betrays the logo centrism on or what he calls the metaphysics of presence in the reader and there are no transcendental or pure signifies. Now, I will quickly end by referring to the reading of by Christopher Prendergast of Derrida's Hamlet now here he says that for someone like Derrida the significance of the ghost of Hamlet's father resides in its radical indeterminacy. If you what is the what are the opening words of Shakespeare's Hamlet where we have the guard saying who is there and many have taken this as a cue to forming a deconstructive reading who is there is talks about in one sense the indeterminacy of you know it is not just a guard saying who is there. So, it symbolizes the indeterminacy of or the impossibility of knowing or not or the fact that you do not know who is there. So, this also is attached to the figure of the ghost of Hamlet's father. For Derrida the significance of the ghost resides in its radical indeterminacy you know that Hamlet is also not sure whether it is a hallucination or whether it is an evil spirit that has conjured the ghost of his father you know which then who then exhausts him to take revenge. Inspectors of Marx by Derrida says Christopher Prendergast it is indeterminate in the more strictly ontological register of occupying a place non-place between presence and absence appearance and disappearance. So, the you know really the ghost of Hamlet's father by its very nature of being and not being in the scene of you know being of inhabiting a place between which is between midway between presence and absence between appearance and disappearance on residing in a you know somewhere between a place and a non-place. So, he says that in this you know it is symbolic of what the deconstructionist is trying to say that words too also occupy this non-space and that is why its signification can never be finally grasped. The specter let us read on the specter is a thing and yet not a thing not a substance it hovers uncertainly between material embodiment and disembodiment it inhabits a place of pure virtuality and what in that space is followed up is the ontological ground of being itself. So, the most important word here is that post-structuralism in general does away with ontology or a senses. There are no senses in post-structuralism all that we can have are really traces is another word here we can have traces we can have supplements, but we cannot have the word literally cannot have the word in its you know you cannot have the word in its totality which because the word meaning therefore is always slippery and it escapes our grasp that is the very nature of language. Then Nile Nial-Lucy and we carry this on Nial-Lucy says here I am using you know Shakespeare's play and you know talking about how a few critics have talked about you know Shakespeare's play in that in to show more light on how we can symbolically connected to deconstruction who is there this is what we refer to a while ago who is there the opening words is not a question we would ask ever ask of something like hydrogen, but it is the question that Bernardo asks at the very beginning of Shakespeare's Hamlet and we might say that this question which opens the play remains open still at the end in Hamlet the question of who or what is there the ghost in Hamlet would could be said to pose the question who am I when am I what is my being what is my time for Derrida these cannot be confined to effects upon the characters and events in that text itself they extend rather the questions of being and time in general and this is a philosophical aspect of post structuralism. We do not have much time here I would have like to you know talk to deconstruct I show you know the deconstructed nature of the text by using a poem like we did in structuralism, but I hope I have been able to at least tell you or convey to you some of the important important points in post structuralism there is no point really in saying that deconstruction there is no you know deconstruction can never be a method because it already says the language is impure than that we can never mean anything that is not the point that is really arguing as I said at absurdum. The point here is that we have we understand we do use language, but at the same time we have to understand the language is by its very nature because you know a term is part of a system is not there is no nothing ontological about it is always relational we have to understand the language is deficient in that sense of where you know or where the delineating of a full meaning is concerned that is what deconstruction is talking about it is not talking about destruction or utter chaos or randomness or things ridiculous. Therefore, according to Derrida texts have gaps texts have aberrations and texts have inconsistencies which is the job of the deconstruction is to show reading against what he says reading against the grain of the text and he says here the reading must always aim at a certain relationship unperceived by the writer between what he commands and what he does not command of the patterns of how beautifully put of the patterns of the language that he uses. So, these gaps aberrations and inconsistencies are what need to be foregrounded actually how the methodology goes and as a method then you take a text and you show how you know you break it down you show how or other the text breaks down how the text will defeat text defeat their state attains and purposes rely on false or unsustainable oppositions make use of figurative terms reverse their own arguments depend on other texts and signs as an intertextuality conceal arguments that are the very opposite of what they ostensibly ostensibly show. So, quickly now let us look at the just one or two questions for instance if you get a question like what is post structuralism take on knowledge that is how does post structuralism consider knowledge. The answer is this in post structuralism knowledge is not a question of true discovery, but it is seen as interpretation and the privileging of any one interpretation of a text is seen as an act of power. Next, how does the approach to meaning in post in structuralism differ from that in post structuralism the previous question was to do with knowledge how does post structuralism consider knowledge how does it look at knowledge how does it define knowledge right. However it is with meaning how does the approach to meaning differ you know in in structuralism and how does it differ from that in post structuralism and the answer is that in structuralism there was a there was a certainty of knowledge. In the sense that we admitted the fact that meaning is always differential in a system meaning is relational that words or term signs are related to other signs and the meaning of a sign emanates from its difference that is why meaning is differential in in structuralism. Yet we saw that meaning is is graspable we can grasp meaning because the there is a stability in the structure right there is a framework there is a stability and it is an organization after all of signs it is not a disorganization of signs and signs you can you can arrive at some sort of meaning, but we saw in post structuralism that in post in the post structuralist approach to meaning is this that there can never be a complete meaning whether it is a sign or whether it is this you know a collection of signs as we find in a text right. So, meaning is endlessly deferred and remember we looked at two words and how they are collapsed to form another word called deferrons right to defer and to defer that is meaning no no doubt and the structuralism is differential differs signs differ from other signs and that is how they get the meanings, but we have an additional you know additional proposition here is that meaning is always also deferred that meaning is always postponed you can never have full meaning from a signified the way it is put is this is in this way by Derrida that is meaning there are no pure signifies or the or there is no transcendental signified that is a transcends all on cultures or structures they can never be a transcendental signified signifiers will always have you know different times and places different signifies signifies and the fact is that all these signifies are also signifiers rise to signifies and the fact is that these signifiers you know the text becomes then a play of signifiers right. So, we then end our lecture here and I would want you to go back if you have to understand post structuralism there is also a need to go back to the structuralism methodology you cannot understand post structuralism without structuralism maybe you can say you understand you can understand structuralism you know without looking at post structuralism, but it is not the other way around first you have to understand as we said in the beginning of this lecture that structuralism post structuralism you know takes off from structuralism that the post here is not just a temporal post of say post world war one etcetera it is a post in the sense that it retains and admits to some of admits some of the you know co premises of structuralism, but it gives a eventually a radical twist to it transforms it and critiques it and the most important you know important point linking into structuralism I would say in my reading is the sign and the idea of differentiality you know definitely in as in structuralism there is meaning through a differential relationship, but in post structuralism though it is retained the other part is more important that there is always a deferral of meaning because by nature you know language is such that they can never be any pure signifies because of the traces substitutions and echoes from other signifies thank you so much.