Thinking Activity on Derrida and Deconstruction

This Blog-post is a response to the thinking activity on 'Derrida and Deconstruction' given by our professor Dr.Dilip Barad Sir. To know about the task, CLICK HERE.

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) was a philosopher who was best known for his theory on Deconstruction which he analyzed in many texts. He is considered the major figure associated with Post-Structuralism and Post-Modern philosophy. 

Deconstruction:

The major concern of the  Poststructuralist is to introduce the text within the text without breaking the foundation of any Structure. This theory is applied in many disciplines such areas of the humanities and social sciences, philosophy, literature, law, psychoanalysis, architecture, anthropology, theology, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, political theory, historiography, and film theory.

By Clicking this Gif, you can get more deeply information about Deconstruction. 

In Deconstruction, it is required to search for the 'absence' between the lines. But it is very difficult to read the absence of space in any Structure without breaking it and within the language. This theory leads the process of unfolding the hidden meaning which again an endless process. But it might concentrate on the process of finding the untold truth and it's again the question comes that is it real truth or not? Perhaps beyond the truth or meaning but what is truth? Well, Derrida slap on the thinking of what is privileged by giving the concept of Binary Opposition. Furthermore, Deconstruction is the reading of decentring by the centrality then subverting the structure or meaning. Claude Levi-Straus favors speech over writing and Derrida called this bias "Logocentricism" along with Transcendental signified and Metaphysics of Presence. Ultimately, it is all about What we see and How we see the narration. 

Deconstruction of an Ad:

The title of this ad is 'An All Out Ad Stand By Mom’s Tough Parenting Decisions. As the ad starts with night dinner where all family members are sitting at the dining table and two women serve the dinner. One child has stolen 10 rupees from her mother's purse without any permission and she got angry with him. Along with his refuging to eat, other women lead his side and taunt his mother even his husband also. 

Decentralising the Title:

While looking at the title, it seems like a fight with itself. Stand by her itself shows the weakness of women. If we decentralised the narration and rethink the title it seems that women can not fight alone. Women can fight but with the help of Others. Women can only step ahead with the support of Others or we can say, Men.

Binary opposition:

I tried to read the binary opposition between men and women. Without knowing what actually did the child, his father also spoke roughly to her mother, 'He has taken my money, not your father's.' It's showing the opposition between men and women. Does it show hierarchy upon women's independence? Perhaps yes, because she is a housewife and by support for this statement given by her husband, shows her superiority over the women. Another dialogue comes from the head of the family who supports the woman whatever she did with her child, "And if I were his mother, I would not feed him for two whole days!" Is it showing real concern from the elder of the family?  It might seem again the men-centric thing, that men can do anything rather than what women can do. And that's why Derrida said, 

"Language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique"

Another thing comes, (it might destroy my application which I gave above) that there are other women who also spoke roughly with other women. Dialogues like, 

"Why did you scold the poor child so badly, for something so inconsequential"

 "He didn't take it from the neighbor." 

"What to do, she comes from an uncultured family." 

So using the word uncultured by a woman for the woman is very problematic. It senses there if women can not value other women, how can they expect from men? Is there is need that they try to fill from men? It might be true.

Using this type of dialogue, the advertisement seems against parenting, because as we see the father who spoke very roughly with her (mother) among the child, it seems overparenting and also some dialogues by other family members. Among the children, they speak against one. Thus how this advertisement might be fighting within the subject. However, the women's own stand is not shown because of the patriarchal structure and its technique of narration, and that's why women become on the periphery of the structure of patriarchy.