and shows us the ways in which we think” p. 169. It means that structuralism focuses on a system and structure of textual structure study. However,
structuralism only applies a particular system as Guerin, et al. 2011 explain below:
Accordingly, they structuralists have been developed analytical, systematic approaches to literary texts that avoid traditional categories
like plot, character, setting, theme, tone, and the like. Even more significantly, however, structuralists tend to deny the text any inherent
privilege, meaning, or authority; to them, the text is only a system that poses the question of how such a construct of language can contain
meaning for us” p. 169. In other words, structuralists describe the meaning without considering any
other systems that may help in shaping the meaning of the text. It also reveals that structuralism seeks what is visible from the text. Thus, structuralists tend
to find meaning from the intrinsic and structural aspects, which is the text itself. On the contrary, post-structuralism, which is the approach of this study,
concentrates on “rhetorical than the grammatical” Guerin, et al., 2011, p. 176. It means that both structuralism and post-structuralism seek for meaning, but
each of them has a different way to obtain the meaning. Structuralism focuses on how meaning is found out of underlying structure. Barry 2009 states that
structuralism aims for “establishing objective knowledge”. It means that the meaning that is discovered from a text is firm and fixed. However, post-
structuralism clarifies that meaning is not only produced from a fixed source, but also produced from other factors as Culler 1997 explains below:
In fact, post-structuralism does not demonstrate the inadequacies or errors of structuralism so much as turn away from the project of working
out what makes cultural phenomena intelligible and emphasize instead a critique of knowledge, totality, and subject. It treats each of these as
problematical effect. The structures of the systems of the signification
do not exist independently of the subject, as objects of knowledge, but are structures for subjects, who are entangled with the forces that
produce them p. 121.
Moreover, since post-structuralism concentrates on rhetorics, it is related to philosophy. Barry 2009 states that post-
structuralism “derives ultimately from philosophy”. Philosophy is a discipline that always tends to emphasize
the difficulty of achieving secure knowledge about things. Barry 2009 adds that “philosophy is skeptical by nature and usually undercuts and questions
commonsensical notions and assumptions”. Since post-structuralism is related to philosophy, post-structuralism inherits this habit of skepticism, and
somehow, intensifies it in seeking the meaning within the text. According to Culler 1997, one procedure in seeking meaning is describing
“how texts create meaning by
violating any conventions that structural analysis locates” p. 121. For post-
structuralists, meaning of the words “cannot be guaranteed one hundred percent pure” Barry, 2009. By that means, it is impossible to
define a complete or coherent signifying system, as Culler 1997 states that “systems are always changing” p. 121.
4. Theory of Deconstruction
Deconstruction and post-structuralism are related to each other. Barry 2009 states that “post-structuralist literary critic is engaged in the task of
d econstructing the text”. Guerin, et al. 2011 add that “post-structuralism and
deconstruction are virtually synonymous” p. 176. In other words, post- structuralism and deconstruction cannot be separated. Looking at its
background, Guerin, et al. state th at “deconstruction arises out of structuralism
of Roland Barthes as a reaction against the certainties of structuralism” p. 176. However, deconstruction cannot easily to be defined. Culler 1997
defines deconstruction as “a critique of the hierarchical oppositions that have structured Western thought: insideoutside, mindbody, literalmetaphorical,
speechwriting, presenceabsence, natureculture, formmeaning” p. 122. While, Bertens 2008 states that deconstruction
is “applied post-structuralism”. Barry 2009 states that this “applied post-structuralism” is a process of
“deconstructing the text”. Johnson as cited in Culler, 1997 states that deconstr
uction is a process that “teases out of warring forces of signification within a text” p. 122. Later on, Barry concludes that deconstruction is a
process of “deconstructing the text” by “reading it against itself, with the purpose of knowing the text as it cannot know itself”. Further, Klarer 1999
argues that “nothing exists outside the text” p. 88. While, In Of
Grammatology, Derrida describes this process as “deconstructive reading” as
follows: “deconstructive 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 language that he uses … [It] attempts to
make the not- seen accessible to sight” as cited in Barry, 2009.
Based on description mentioned by Derrida, deconstruction process which can be called as deconstructive reading aims to reveal other meaning or
idea beyond the first one. It attempts to find the hidden meaning within the text, but not justifies the result as the final meaning. In other words, it pursues the
unseen rather than the visible one. In addition, Cuddon in Dictionary of Literary Terms as cited in Barry, 2009 states that in deconstruction:
“a text can be read as saying something quite different from what it appears to be saying … it may be read as carrying plurality or
significance or as saying many different things which are fundamentally at variance with, contradictory to and subversive of what may be seen
by criticism as a single stable meaning
”. It strengthens the idea that deconstructing a text may reveal new meaning that
hides within a text. Moreover, the new meaning may oppose the previous meaning that can be
seen as Cuddon suggests that “a text may betray itself”. Deconstruction makes the texts as “open-ended constructs” which are
always dynamic. It means that the meaning in the text can only lead to countless other meanings Guerin, et al. 2011, p. 176, as described as follows:
“deconstruction views texts as subversively undermining an apparent or surface meaning, and it denies any final explication or statement of
meaning. It questions the presence of any objective structure or content in a text. Instead of alarm or dismay at their discoveries, the practitioners
of deconstruction celebrate the text’s self-destruction, that inevitable seed of its own internal contradiction, as a never-ending free play of
language” p. 176. Klarer 1999 also agrees that deconstruction leads to various meaning, but not
final meaning by stating “the text does not remain the same after its reconstruction, since the analysis of signs and their re-organization in the
interpretative process is like a continuation of the text itself” p. 89. Therefore, object of deconstruction is not like formalism, which seeks
for the final meaning of a text as Kennedy and Gioia 2002 mention that formalist “demonstrates how the diverse elements of a text cohere into
meaning” p. 655. Belsey 1990 in Critical Practice states that the object of
