Page 86 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes 7.3.3 Différance
Différance is an attempt to conjoin the differing and deferring aspects involved in arche-writing in
a term that itself plays upon the distinction between the audible and the written. After all, what
differentiates différance and différence is inaudible, and this means that distinguishing between
them actually requires the written. This problematises efforts like Saussure's, which as well as
attempting to keep speech and writing apart, also suggest that writing is an almost unnecessary
addition to speech. In response to such a claim, Derrida can simply point out that there is often,
and perhaps even always, this type of ambiguity in the spoken word - différence as compared to
différance - that demands reference to the written. If the spoken word requires the written to
function properly, then the spoken is itself always at a distance from any supposed clarity of
consciousness. It is this ordinary breach that Derrida associates with the terms arche-writing and
différance.
Of course, différance cannot be exhaustively defined, and this is largely because of Derrida's
insistence that it is "neither a word, nor a concept", as well as the fact that the meaning of the term
changes depending upon the particular context in which it is being employed. For the moment,
however, it suffices to suggest that according to Derrida, différance is typical of what is involved
in arche-writing and this generalised notion of writing that breaks down the entire logic of the
sign. The widespread conviction that the sign literally represents something, which even if not
actually present, could be potentially present, is rendered impossible by arche-writing, which
insists that signs always refer to yet more signs ad infinitum, and that there is no ultimate referent
or foundation. This reversal of the subordinated term of an opposition accomplishes the first of
deconstruction's dual strategic intents. Rather than being criticised for being derivative or secondary,
for Derrida, writing, or at least the processes that characterise writing (ie. différance and arche-
writing), are ubiquitous. Just as a piece of writing has no self-present subject to explain what every
particular word means (and this ensures that what is written must partly elude any individual's
attempt to control it), this is equally typical of the spoken. Utilising the same structure of repetition,
nothing guarantees that another person will endow the words I use with the particular meaning
that I attribute to them. Even the conception of an internal monologue and the idea that we can
intimately 'hear' our own thoughts in a non-contingent way is misguided, as it ignores the way
that arche-writing privileges difference and a non-coincidence with oneself.
7.3.4 Trace
In this respect, it needs to be pointed out that all of deconstruction's reversals (arche-writing
included) are partly captured by the edifice that they seek to overthrow. For Derrida, "one always
inhabits, and all the more when one does not suspect it", and it is important to recognise that the
mere reversal of an existing metaphysical opposition might not also challenge the governing
framework and presuppositions that are attempting to be reversed. Deconstruction hence cannot
rest content with merely prioritising writing over speech, but must also accomplish the second
major aspect of deconstruction's dual strategies, that being to corrupt and contaminate the opposition
itself.
Derrida must highlight that the categories that sustain and safeguard any dualism are always
already disrupted and displaced. To effect this second aspect of deconstruction's strategic intents,
Derrida usually coins a new term, or reworks an old one, to permanently disrupt the structure into
which he has intervened - examples of this include his discussion of the pharmakon in Plato (drug
or tincture, salutary or maleficent), and the supplement in Rousseau, which will be considered
towards the end of this section. To phrase the problem in slightly different terms, Derrida's argument
is that in examining a binary opposition, deconstruction manages to expose a trace. This is not a
trace of the oppositions that have since been deconstructed - on the contrary, the trace is a rupture
within metaphysics, a pattern of incongruities where the metaphysical rubs up against the non-
metaphysical, that it is deconstruction's job to juxtapose as best as it can. The trace does not appear
as such, but the logic of its path in a text can be mimed by a deconstructive intervention and hence
brought to the fore.

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