Page 117 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Unit 9: Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences’—Jacques Derrida: Critical Appreciation

Wagdi and seems to wish himself on the same level, but he is merely a hazy modern imitation Notes
of what Amer once represented. Hosni Allam's frequent use of colloquial speech and the
attitude with which he looks down upon all the others stems from the lordliness of the
landowning class. In his opening paragraph he speaks with disdain of being rejected because
of his lack of education and surplus of attitude:" No education,' she said, and a hazardous
hundred feddans.' That's what Miss Blue-Eyes said, as she slammed the door in my face and
sat down behind to wait for the next prospective stud-bull to come along". Hosni's account
of this exchange reveals not only his own attitude, but also that of the blue-eyed upper class
girl who rejected him. In the same manner, Sarhan El-Beheiry reveals his country roots
through his frequent references to nature and that culture's dependence on it. When he first
meets Zohra, the servant at the Miramar who has run away from an arranged marriage in
her native village, he says, "I remembered the cotton-picking season at home". His constant
references to the rustic ways of life delineate his background as agrarian, albeit with the
education that comes with a middle class family. In this manner, each character reveals their
individual cultural background through their different uses of language. Despite its usefulness
in analyzing character and content by the language used, the study of linguistic structure has
its limits. As Culler points out, linguistics "may provide a general focus, either suggesting to
the critic that he look for differences and oppositions which can be correlated with one
another and organized as a system which generates the episodes or forms of the text, or
offering a set of concepts in which interpretations may be stated". However, Culler describes
a "second approach" to structural analysis, which involves the structure of the work as a
whole. This approach to structural analysis is completely different than the linguistic approach;
as Culler says, "A study of plot cannot be a study of the ways in which sentences are
combined, for two versions of the same plot need have no sentences in common, nor need
they, perhaps, have any linguistic deep-structures in common". In Miramar, the structure of
the language used contributes a great deal to the development of character and culture, but
an analysis of the structure of the novel itself shows the development of the story, as it is told
and retold from new points of view. Each narrator uses a different linguistic style, yet still
manages to tell the same basic story; although a purely linguistic analysis of structure would
balk at this, an analysis that focuses on plot structure allows for these inconsistencies between
narrators. Culler observes, "It seems an elementary and intuitively given fact that a story can
be told in different ways and remain, in an important sense, the same story". In using
different voices to tell and retell the events leading up to Sarhan El-Beheiry's death, Miramar
uses this innate ability of readers to recognize different versions of the same story, at the
same expecting that they will also be able to interpret the development of the story with each
unique telling of it.

9.4 Key-Words
1. Metonomy : Substitution
2. Eidos : Plato's term: "form," essence
3. Energia : "Energy"/activation
4. Techne : Technique, skill, art, craft
5. Factum : Fact
6. Bricolage : Using whatever means are linguistically at hand, regardless of their truth
7. Bricoleur : One who engages in bricolage
9.5 Review Questions

1. Who is Clande Levi-Strauss and why is his work so important for Derrida?
2. What are the two possible reactions to or interpretations of this new understanding of ‘Structure’,
Sign, and Play? When does Derrida cite as example?

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