POST-STRUCTURALISM

            Post-strucuralism emerged in France in the late 1960s.  The two figures who are  associated with this emergence are Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida.  Roland Barthes was earlier recognised as structuralist critic but in the late 1960s his work began to shift from a structuralist phase to a post-structuralist phase both in character and move. This difference can be clearly seen by comparing the two different works of Barthes – The Structural Analysis of Narrative and The Pleasures of the Text. The Structural Analysis of narrative is detailed, methodological and technical whereas The Pleasures of the Text is mere a series of random comments of Barthes on narrative which are arranged alphabetically.

            During this time Barthes published another essay The Death of the Author (1968).This essay marked Barthes’ deviation from structuralism to post-structuralism.  In that essay, Barthes argues that there is a total independence for the text and the text is not concerned with any external notion like what the author might have intended or crafted into the work. This essay asserts textual independence.  Thus, the ‘death of the author’ gave rise to the birth of the reader. As a result, the text which was seen as something produced by the author is viewed as something produced by the reader. The early phase of post-structuralism enjoyed a free play of meanings and the escape from all forms of textual authority. But later, as Barbara Johnson pointed out, post-structuralism became ‘a disciplined identification’.

            The second key figure in the development of post-structuralism is Jacques Derrida. His lecture Structure, Sign and Play is the starting point of post-structuralism. In this lecture, Derrida talks about the ‘decentring’ of our intellectual universe. Earlier man was the measure of all other things in the universe. His norms of dress, behaviour, architecture and intellectual outlook provided firm centre against which deviations and variations could be detected and identified as ‘other’. However, in the twentieth century, these centres were destroyed and eroded. This was caused by the First World War and scientific discoveries. It resulted in the disappearance of absolutes or fixed points. Instead of movement or deviation from a known centre there was a free play. Since there was no authoritative centre to appeal for validation of our interpretations, all interpretations were accepted.

            The post structuralists read the text against itself so as to expose what might be thought of as the textual subconscious where meanings are expressed which may be directly contrary to the surface meaning. They are concerned with the surface features of the words like the similarities in sound, the root meanings of words, metaphor and bring these to the foreground so that they become crucial to the overall meaning. They show that the text is characterised by disunity rather than unity. They concentrated on a single passage and analyse it so intensively that the language explodes into ‘multiplicities of meaning’. They also looked for shifts and breaks in the text and saw them as evidences of what were repressed and passed over in silence by the text.

            The difference between structuralism and post structuralism can be brought under the following four headings:

Origins : Structuralism derives from linguistics. It follows methods, system and reason. Post-structuralism derives from philosophy. It encourages no facts only interpretations.

Tone and Style: Structuralists writing tends towards abstraction and generalization It has a detached tone and coolness of a scientific writing.

Attitude to Language: Structuralists believe that the world is constructed through language and we can have access to reality only through language. The post-structuralists hold the view that reality itself is textual.

Project:  Structuralists induce us to break free of habitual modes of perception or categorisation and believe that thereby we can attain a more reliable view of things. Post-structuralists consider the human beings as the individual and a product of social and linguistic forces.