This blog is about the theory of deconstruction found by Derrida. This blog is a response to the task assigned by Dilip Barad as part of the syllabus and thinking activity. So in this blog, I would like to share my ideas and understanding of deconstruction, and how to deconstruct the work with the example.
First of all, I would like to give an introduction of the Founder of the theory,
Who is Derrida?
Jacques Derrida was an Algerian-born French philosopher best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he analyzed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy. During his career, he published more than 40 books, together with hundreds of essays and public presentations. He had a significant influence on the humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, literature, law, anthropology, historiography, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, architecture, political theory etc.
(1)What do you understand by 'Deconstruction'?
The term deconstruction was coined by Jacques Derrida. Deconstruction is one kind of way to find out the structure and gap between the words of the work through the language used in works. The idea of deconstruction started with the idea of language because everything is about language only. Deconstruction is a way of understanding how something was created, usually things like art, books, poems and other writing. Deconstruction is theory to make part of something for the better understanding and find out what is behind the word and meaning given by the World to the thing which we want to deconstruct, but the way writer use to make smaller part which is became the way of criticising and it's became problematic.
It is not always about how writer looking at works but it's about the reader and experience of them, which they gone through. It's may happend that writer doesn't have such ideas which reader may get and understood , because it's not man who speaks but the language speaks. And we can say deconstruction is the Idea about what is between words rather than what is written. For example the word - women , deconstructive look at women means absence of manliness. They are not interested in loom women who have female organs and the structure of women given by society but they look it as absence of manliness and women who is not men. This way of looking at the word called binary oppositions. Because of things like this, deconstruction argues that books and poems never just mean what we think they mean at first. But they always have something else. And it's depends on our knowledge of language because we are limited by language. If we are aware about more languages we get more idea and meaning. For example the word intrest - attraction, profit and enjoyment , so with the one word intrest we got many words because I had idea about synonyms of interest. So it's all about your vocabularies about knowledge of language otherwise you are limited to read. But when we talked about meaning is never static, it's changes with the passing of the time and the work also. For example the word 'Intrest ' used in arts as enjoyment and in commerce it's about profit.
Words are made up of 'signifiers', or the sounds/spellings, and the 'signified', or the meaning and concepts they are talking about. However, the meaning of a word is naturally ambiguous, the word in itself and the meaning are not naturally linked.
So this is the simplified version of Deconstruction. But what Derridian concept of Deconstruction is that text is a "Free play of Meaning".
Derrida says that meaning of a word is usually thought of as something in our mind in such are but Derrida points out that meaning of word is nothing but another word.
What connects a word with it's meaning or as signal with it's meaning is the convention and the convention is always social."
So, he implied that arbitrariness means any word can be used to talk about anything technically but what connects a word with it's meaning or a signal with it's meaning is the convention and convention is always social and it by concious that kind of word and meaning gets connects.
2)Read an ad or TV serial or Film or literary text as post-structuralist critic.
When i was watching the advertisement i thought it was about girl who want to make career and be successful but it was not about that only , then i thought it was about the another girl who sit there and try to calm down her child so i thought advertisement celebrated the motherhood but it was exactly like that then, there is third women who is servent and normal worker there who manage her children and work together, and the fourth women who is doing business only, who thought that it is hard to manage job and children and according to her the other three women are doing one thing only like , one is Mother only because she wearing saree and carry child , another is doing job and third one is focusing on making career but at the end of the advertisement i came to know that the mother who carry child who is handling whole district as she is the SSP. So the advertisement was not about working and business woman but about the motherhood along with job. It's breaking the idea of cloth and appearance.
Another example is that,
When i was watching the advertisement that time I thought it was about the importance of time as she denied to have time, then when they enter in the house of their neighbour and both the men are doing work collaboratively so i thought it celebrated friendship then she said to her husband that how they work that time he replied that we were also doing same during the college days that time we came to know that now they don't. That time I thought that it was about gender equality as men and women both have to help each other as she said that if you are with your friend that time you do, both the boys are doing help of each other then why don't you understand me equal to you so that time we reached at conclusion that the advertisement is about gender equality but it's broke down our assumption as the ad was about Ariel detergent powder.
In this advertisement, when we look at the first sight that time saree became signifiers for us, as we always have an idea of saree with the housewife and mother, jeans or western clothes for the business woman so at first sight this give us idea to understand it according to our experienced but when we look further it deconstruct our Idea and give us another understanding of the things.
Today I write blog about a short story named - An Astrologer by R.K. Narayan. We study this story in class and watched short movie about it. My this blog is about my understanding of the story as we read whole short story then we watched movie which became helpful to us for better understanding of this story.
R.K.Narayan :-
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami was an Indian writer known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.
1)How faithful is the movie to the original short story?
An Astrologer is short story by R.K.Narayan and we study this as part of our syllabus. We read whole story in class and then we watched movie which was not that much good but it's became helpful for better understanding of story. Movie was made by Pocketfilms. Directed and produced by Shushant bhat. Movie tries to be faithful with the story as it is completely as it is as story but there is minor differences are done like, In short story there is no dialogues of 'Usha' the wife of Astrologer but in movie we can see many dialogues of her. Another difference is that in story there were no reference about his daughter but in movie we can see he had daughter and kind of family Idea are there. So, Movie is almost faithful to short story but there are minor differences we found in movie than story.
2)After watching the movie, have your perception about the short story, characters or situations changed?
Yes, As watching give better idea of the thing than reading. When i read story at the end we came to know about the mystery behind that how he able guess the past of Guru Nayak and at the end we came to know about attempt of murder done by Astrologer in his younger days, so then i thought how guru Nayak don't able to recognise him but when we watched movie then i came to know that it was time of night and there were no light but when Guru Nayak burned his cigarette that time astrologer see the face of guru and recognise him but in reading we didn't get the Idea about it. So it's give better idea of story after watching.
There we found some changes in movie than story like character of wife and daughter of Astrologer, as in short story there is no reference of daughter but in movie Usha ( wife of Astrologer) demand from him to took some sweets for their daughter. So there we got Idea about love for his daughter.
3)Do you feel ‘aesthetic delight’ while watching the movie? If yes, exactly when did it happen? If no, can you explain with reasons?
Yes, We read story first then we watch movie which was not that much good but it's became helpful for better understanding of story as during the reading we unconsciously missed many words and we can't visualised the things properly so ofcourse it is give us better understanding of story. At theend when astrologer revealed his past about guru Nayak and then he feel so happy as he thought that he murdered him but when he saw him alive he feel grateful and then he sleep well. So this give me delight that now he had no regret about murdered as the person is alive.
4)Does screening of movie help you in better understanding of the short story?
Yes, Movie became helpful for better understanding of the story. We read whole story in class and then we watched movie which was not that much good but it's became helpful for better understanding of story. Movie was made by Pocketfilms. Directed and produced by Shushant bhat. Movie tries to be faithful with the story as it is completely as it is as story. While we read something we unconsciously missed many words and paused between words so it's changed our interpretation of that but in watching we can understand the things properly so it's became helpful for better understanding of short story.
5)Was there any particular scene or moment in the story that you think was perfect?
Yes, there is one small scene which changed everything. The customer Guru Nayak who came to him for the search of the person who tried to killed him and when he challenged to astrologer we became curious that now what will Aestrologer do as he doesn't have knowledge of that, but in darkness one scene of burned cigarette changed everything as astrologer will the bat and indirectly save himself from Guru Nayak as he want to kill the person who tried to killed him but astrologer save himself by saying that the person who attempted to murdered was dead in one accident so he should go home otherwise someone else murder him so this is perfect scene of story to change two life.
6) If you are director, what changes would you like to make in the remaking of the movie based on the short story “An Astrologer’s Day” by R.K.Narayan?
If I am director of the movie and I have to make movie on it so i want to reveal the identity of astrologer with the using of some lights like he saw Guru Nayak i would like to throw some light on him too because he cheated people by lying to them and manipulating them so i want to reveal his identity.
This blog is response of the task assigned by Professor Dilip Barad sir. This is flipped learning task in which we have to do self study through given videos and materials. So this blog is about my understanding of the given videos. So let's start with the introduction of the Derrida,
Who is Derrida?
Jacques Derrida was an Algerian-born French philosopher best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he analyzed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.
During his career, Derrida published more than 40 books, together with hundreds of essays and public presentations. He had a significant influence on the humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, literature, law, anthropology, historiography, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, architecture, and political theory.
What is Deconstruction?
Deconstruction doesn't actually mean "demolition" instead it means "breaking down" or analysing something especially the words in a work of fiction or nonfiction to discover its true significance, which is supposedly almost never exactly what the author intended.
The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was originated by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences which take precedence over appearances, instead considering the constantly changing complex function of language, making static and idealist ideas of it inadequate.
My understanding of this videos:-
Video -1
In the very first video speaker give the idea about why is it difficult to define deconstruction, why is it a not negative term and how deconstruction happen it's own.
1)Why is it difficult to define deconstruction?
Darrida denied to deconstruct any work. And he put a question thatit is possible to define?and Derrida become very difficult philosopher to read and the one reason is that why it is difficult to define.
2)Why is it a not negative term?
Derrida said this is not destructive activity and breaking down something for sake of deconstruction but Derrida inquiring into the condition - what are the condition which make philosophical or intellectual system possible, basically he is inquiring.
How deconstruction is not a negative term:-
Deconstruction is not destructive activity but an inquiry into the foundations causes of intellectual system, one reason why it is not negative term.
This is from Heidegger's project of destruction which he transformed into french from German and that is what he explained in the Latter to a Japanese friend" to July, 1983To Professor Izutsu. He want to transformed French text of Derrida into Japanese and so he wants to know how to translate.
3)How deconstruction happen it's own?
Once you consider it's not deconstruction but an inquiry into the limits of Philosophical System it's coherence then we see that the condition which Produced a Philosophical system -
'The very condition Derrida argue is based on distinction or binary oppositions'
Video -2 :-
In this video speaker talked about the Heidegger's influence on Derrida and Western philosophy.
-The seeds of deconstruction sprouted from Martin Heidegger.(1889-1976).
Martin Heidegger, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche - three famous thinkers.
Heidegger and his philosophy deals with the theme which Derrida continued in his own philosophy.
The term 'Destruction' in German translated as 'Deconstruction' in French - is one of the many direct connections between Heidegger & Derrida so this is direct connection.
Heidegger pointed out that the western tradition of philosophy avoided or repressed or neglected the question of being of beings he implies entities like this microtable or person but western philosophy refused to look at the mode of their existence.
-Heidegger wanted to destroy or dismantle the entire tradition of western philosophy by persuing the question of being of beings.
Famous book - 'Being and time' German sein und zeit' 1927 by Martin Heidegger.
Book about the project of transforming western people think and Derrida continued this project.
-Theme of language:-
Heidegger pointed out that it is Language who speaks not man. 'Man is decentered from the language'. Meaning is product of language - language displace the man this we find in Heidegger as well as in Nietzsche's philosophy also.
Derrida argue that the whole question of writing is neglected and repressed in entire tradition of western thought. Focus of language is on writing rather than speaking so what happens here Derrida is criticizing Heidegger - tendency is speech rather than write - Derrida called it phonosentricism is a menifestation of 'logocentricism' of the western metaphysics the tendency to privilege presence over absence.
Question:- what is difference between 'phonocentricism' and 'logocentricism'?
Video:-3
1)How Derrida deconstrucs the idea of arbitrariness metaphysics of presence.
Ferdinand de Saussure( 1857- 1913)
(Course in general linguistic)
Saussure's writing is that the relationship between word and it's meaning it is natural but conventional for example word - sister - has no natural relationship with the person or human being.
"What connects a word with it's meaning or as signal with it's meaning is the convention and the convention is always social."
So he implied that arbitrariness means any word can be used to talk about anything technically but what connects a word with it's meaning or a signal with it's meaning is the convention and convention is always social and it by concious that kind of word and meaning gets connects.
Derrida says that meaning of a word is usually thought of as something in our mind in such are but Derrida points out that meaning of word is nothing but another word.
Metaphysics of presence logocentricism & phonocentricism' is another term taking from Heidegger - what he pointed out by metaphysics of presence is when we consider to being of something - for example The word table - we always connectingn it with presence and what Heidegger was questioning association to being with presence when you want to say something exists you can say 'is' so it is proofe of it's existence.
Western philosophy is built on the binary oppositions just like human language, there is no positive element in language but only negative one - Saussure.
'Presence of something can be understood as absence of something'.
For example what is women - women is seen as absence of the manliness.
Good v/s evil - binary oppositions then evil is which lacks goodness and what is good , good is something which lacks evil.
Derrida points out that these oppositions are not equal but hierarchic where the second term is considered either derivative or inferior to the first - the privileged one.
Derrida is actually criticising social system because the way Language is used.
Video:- 4
Derridian concept of 'Differance'
Difference does not have audible difference thus it becomes difficult to understand.
Every common activity which most of the us are familiar with that is referring dictionary. For example - the word intrest
And there we find meaning - interest is noun which means you know one more thing about intrest, another word is attraction that is another meaning and third meaning is hobby.
What Derrida is questioning is, what do you mean by understand and he draw the attention to the fact that what we looked in dictionary and what we find is not it's meaning but a group of another word. One word leads to the another word and that word leads to yet another....and finally we never come out of the dictionary - so there is no final word to any word.
Derrida said that we assumed that we have understand.
Meaning is always postponed- so final meaning of the word is myth according to Derrida and you can never reach to the final meaning.
Derrida combines two terms - differ and defer -because in French one word is use to implied both that is to differer.
'You can never pronounce it differently you can only spell it differently'.
Derrida is drawing attention towards difference between speech and writing. He questions privilege of speech over writing. And that's why we never hear difference we only read difference.
Difference is not an idea or a concept but a force which makes differentiation posible which makes postponing possible - communication is possible made by difference.
In western philosophy assumed that the final meaning can be grasped and that final meaning what they called 'Transcendental signified ' Derrida called it symptom of metaphysics of presence.
It is both negative and positive at the same time difference is neither positive nor negative.
Phonocentricism is the tendency in the western philosophy to privilege speech over writing. Writing is practice of absence , speaking is practice of presence- and that is called phonocentricism.
Of grammatology (1967) french - De la Grammatogle the English translation by Gayatri chakravarti Spivak (1976) corrected editing republished in 1997.
Writing as primarily and speeking as secondary.
Video:- 5
Structure , sign &play in the discourse of the human sciences.
'Language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique. This sentence is what deconstruction all about.
The essay structure, sign and play is one of the very important documents of the contemporary literary theory known as post structuralism in 1967 by post structuralism we doesn't mean outright rejection or criticism of structuralism but going beyond by critiquing structuralism so the essay is actually a critique of Claude Lavi Strauss 1908- 2009 french anthropologist ' who made structuralism very popular. structural anthropology '1958' what he implies here is that structuralism when it began it began as criticism or attack on metaphysics on one hand or science on another. Science 8s predominant way of getting knowledge in the west.
The centre is paradoxically within the structure and outside it… the totality "has it's centre elsewhere" the centre is not centre.
Structuralism began as critique of assumption of science as well as metaphysics but what Derrida is questioning is how come then Lavi Strauss using the same assumption so he is saying that how assumption and criticism of science is same.
So why this happens Derrida said that
Derrida pushes the established notion of the centre to the point of 'rupture ' in the history of thought on structurality .
So he gave Examples of past how Nietzsche criticized the earlier tradition of western philosophy and Heidegger said that Nietzsche is the last critic of tradition and Derrida said that Nietzsche was last so what happens to tradition is that Tradition using the same assumption that tradition is using. So what happens whenever you final meaning of the word ultimate meaning is postponed is never there to take. Derrida said that it happened because of the language because meaning is always postponed and you never catch the final meaning. And there is always something missing so language demands critic so any philosophical statement contain blind spot which asked for criticism and this applies on deconstruction also so deconstruction also falls to prey to metaphysics and so most of the time deconstructive writing is auto critical deconstructive writing most of the time auto critical. Its question itself ongoingly because when you question western tradition you question yourself so autocratic.
For Derrida, it was necessary to begin thinking that there was no center, that the center could not be thought in the form of a present-being, that the center had no natural site, that it was not a fixed locus but a function, a sort of non locus in which an infinite number of sign-substitutions came into play. This rupture. This deconstruction of the centre thus created a world where "the absence of the transcendental signified extends the domain and the play of signification infinitely".
Video:- 6
The Yale school hub of practitioners of deconstruction in literary theories.
The characteristics of the Yale school of deconstruction.
During 1970s, the Yale school has been the hub of the practitioners of Deconstruction in the literary theories
Yale University and department of Yale has very important role in propagation of Derrida's idea in America and consequently in whole world earlier post structuralism and Derrida were confined to continental tradition of European philosophy with deconstruction going into Yale it became kind of real new theme breaking on the scene after new criticism this was something which were new than new criticism so it's became very fashionable and people associated with this department the four names 1 Paul de man 1919 - 1983 , j Hills Miller 1928, Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman this four people made deconstruction very popular or unpopular we can say in America in fact it became notorious so as the people also titled them as Yale hermeneutic mafia of four people but if we look at the four people they are different in their occupation , in their preoccupation with literary criticism but at first time deconstruction became a school of literary criticism because of yale. Yale school is responsible for bringing deconstruction in literary criticism in a big way.
Some important characteristics:-
Looking at literature as primarily a rhetorical and figurative construct, they argue that Language is full of figurative components. Language is a very unreliable tool for communication of meaning. For example when I say someone an Ass so what I mean figuratively or characteristically. So what figurative language does is that it puts language as a very problematic entity.
So these four critics focused on this figurative components of literature.
Firstly looking at literature as rhetorical or figurative construct.
They showed that literature can create multiplicity of meaning by focusing on various figures of speech.
Secondly, they question both the aesthetic as well as formalist approach to literature; and also question the historicist or sociologist approach to literature.
They said that language does not take you directly to the society or outside of the language so language is not a transparent medium of communication so what makes it non-transparent is figurative components so what's they argue?
Secondly, what we understand through the aesthetic pleasure that we derive from literature is when we mistake in prodemand word multiplicity of signified and multiplicity of signifier when we say red red rose then rose comes in our mind.
This is preoccupation with romanticism
They often read romantic texts which have different kinds of meanings than what we were taught to read. For example romanticism characterised by metaphor and symbols.
In 'Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism' (1971) Paul de Man sought to deconstruct the privileging of symbol over allegory and metaphor over metonymy in Romantic thought.
Video:-7
How other critical school like new historicism , cultural materialism , feminism, Marxism & post colonial theories used deconstruction.
So Yale school was primarily preoccupied with theoretical and figurative analysis of literary criticism of text and in demonstrating that Literary text has multiple range of meanings was one of the most important preoccupation of Yale school as against that other critical approaches like cultural materialism feminism, gender theory, post colonial studies , new historicism, Marxism , psychoanalysis all of the have been influenced by Derrida's writing.
Postcolonial theories: fascinated by its ability to show that the texts or the discource of the colonizers can be deconstructed from within the narratives.
Feminist theories: interested because it deals with how to subvert the binary between male and female-to subvert patriarchal discourse.
Deconstruction provide tools for supporting this patriarchal setup or patriarchal discourse so faminist are interested in deconstruction and its ability to undermine patriarchy.
'The text is historical , and history is textual'
Cultural materialists: interested in it to emphasize the materiality of language-language is material construct and unmask the hidden it has got ability to
ideological agendas.
As Derrida keeps on emphasizing that the language is material constructed and it has ability to unmask the hidden ideological agendas and programs so cultural materialism also uses many ideas from Derrida. New historicism is also influenced by deconstruction and what Louise Montrose one of very important new historist says that new historicism is interested in reciprocal concern between textuality of history and historically of text so what he means to say is that text itself is a historical entity it has got historical context it's shaped by history and at the same time we understand that history is also through text, we never have history without text.
So this is what I understood from this videos. I hope my blog is useful to you:-)
This blog is about the novel wide Sargasso Sea by Jean. This novel is both a response and a prequel to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, set in the West Indies and imagining the lives of Bertha Mason and her family. In this blog how Jean Rhys’s novel portrays the racial and sexual exploitation at the heart of western civilisation and literature. Wide Sargasso Sea is also a valuable historical work, written in the 1960s but set in the early 1800s, which explores Victorian paternalism, sexualised racism and the complex social and political history of the West Indies. This blog is response to the task assigned by Yesha Bhatt Ma'am as thinking activity.
So first of all i would like to give introduction of the writer:-
Jane Rhys:-
Jean Rhys original name Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams, West Indian novelist who earned acclaim for her early works set in the bohemian world of Europe in the 1920s and ’30s but who stopped writing for nearly three decades, until she wrote a successful novel set in the West Indies named - Wide Sargasso Sea.
Jean Rhys has established herself as one of the most remarkable novelists in the twentieth century. Her special
personal background fosters her unique perspective of literary creation. Born in former British Caribbean colony and
growing up there, Jean Rhys’ novels focus on the life of Caribbean indigenous people, especially the miserable life of
women under the oppression of the patriarchal society, and Wide Sargasso Sea is the best representative of these novels.
Introduction of the Novel:-
The unique novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, seeks to recreate the true story of Bertha Mason, the Jamaican mad wife of
Rochester in Bronte’s 'Jane Eyre', Rhys wanted to explore the reasons why Bertha Mason went mad.
The novel divided into three parts according to the Narrator of the novel. Very first part was narrated by Antoinette, second part was by Antoinette and her husband and third part by again Antoinette.
The novel talked about the identity of the women, racial identity in the post colonial period through the character of the Bertha Mason who had Creole identity. The novel discuss the theme like, post colonialism, Creole identity of the people, marriage and most important condition of the women as rejected wife , slavery and Ethnicity etc...
1)Post colonialism - post colonial response to Jane Eyre:-
First of all what is post colonialism:-
The term ‘Post colonialism’ is widely refersto the representation of race, ethnicity, culture andhuman identity in the modern era, mostly aftermany colonised countries got their independence. Post colonial literature is the literature of countries that were colonized mainly by European countries. Post colonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the decolonization of a country, especially questions relating to the political and cultural independence of formerly subjected people. In post colonial theory, voice given to the characters whose identity came into centre of the post colonial.
Post colonial literature mainly focused on the themes like,
1) Exile and Elienation
2) Struggle and Opposition
3) Confusion of Identities - Multiculturalist
In this novel 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte discuss the Idea of colonialism and the identity crises of the characters. Main character of the novel Jane Eyre was orphan girl who lived with her aunt Mrs Reed who torture her a lot and after the passing of the time send her to lowood institution where she face many problems with teachers and made one friend name Helen Burns who died in the early age due to illness. When Jane turned into eighteen year she looking for the job of teacher and Mr. Rochester hiring her as governors for his daughter. There Jane save the life of Mr Rochester and after the passing of the time She fall in love with Rochester and Rochester proposed her and both dicied to get married in the church but at that time somebody came and tell to Jane that Rochester is already married - the wife of the Rochester named Antoinette- Bertha took into room there is no window and Rochester claims that she is mad, then Jane run away from the house of Rochester and at end of the Novel she came back to Rochester for marriage and expressed her love to him that's how story end. Bronte's novel deals with the other idea and the character of Bertha Mason- the wife of the Edward Rochester was deliberately silented by the writer, as the reply of the novel Jane tried to give the voice to the character of Bertha, Create a Creole identity of her in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea and make her leading character named whose name Antoinette. Many other characters like:-
-Annette Cosway Mason - Mother
-Alexander Cosway - Father of heroin
-Antoinette Cosway Mason- Protagonist
-Pierre Cosway - brother - mentally challenged
-Mason - Annette's second husband
-Richard Mason - son of Annette and Mason
-Rochester - husband of Antoinette
-Amelie - maid
-Christophene - care taker of Antoinette
Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea depicts the story of a woman named Antoinette Cosway. Like Jean Rhys, Antoinette is white Creole, which means her ancestors were from Europe, but she was born in the Caribbean. Unlike Rhys, however, Antoinette is a heiress. In the novel, an English gentleman marries her. Although it is never explicitly confirmed, the English gentleman in question is supposed to be Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre.
In the Bronte's novel Antoinette was called, “the mad Creole” and the motto of the wide Sargasso Sea is to find out why she called mad Creole "There is always the other side, always.”
The novel set into Jamaica The white Creole daughter of a former slave trader, Antoinette, struggles through her life for her happiness, love and acceptation. The black community does not accept her because she is white. For her Creole background, she does not fit in to the world of her English husband, Rochester.
In the figure of Antoinette, whom in Wide Sargasso Sea Rochester violently renames Bertha, Rhys suggests that so intimate a thing as personal and human identity might be determined by the politics of imperialism. Antoinette, as a white Creole child growing up at the time of emancipation in Jamaica, is caught between the English imperialist and the black native. she is at once neither English nor Jamaican, and is home in a nation that is not her original ‘homeland’ of England. This search for identity within a nation itself however is not unusual within postcolonial novels: ‘a major feature of postcolonial literatures is concern with place and displacement. It is here that the special post-colonial crisis of identity comes into being, the concern with the development or recovery of an effective identifying relationship between self and place’. The narrative of the novel itself and the language used is key to revealing and understanding Antoinette’s sense of self and the struggle that arises in this attempt, and this arises as a direct result of postcolonialism ‘one of the main features of imperial oppression is control over language’.
The first section of the novel is narrated by Antoinette and recounts her childhood and adolescence until she is married to an unnamed husband (Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre). During the passage concerning the burning of her childhood home, we see Antoinette’s interaction with her childhood friend and native of the island, Tia. Antoinette runs to Tia and states,
‘As I ran, I thought, I will live with Tia and I will be like her. Not to leave Coulibri. Not to go. Not.’
Part two of the novel is narrated by Antoinette’s husband, and describes how he marries Antoinette for her money due to his position as the second son in an age of primogeniture. However, the marriage quickly falls apart as the husband comes to see Antoinette as tainted with the suggestion that her father had affairs with his slaves and fathered children, and comes to doubt her mental state. She is not mad but she got applied madness as her mother was mad when she lost her son and someone tried to physically abused her. Antoinette also lost her mental stability and feel herself alone as her friend and husband cheated on her.
The final is Antoinette’s narration in part three of the novel we see the impact that the control of her husband has had upon her, she now sees herself as doll, trapped in ‘cardboard walls’. As at the start of the novel, we see Antoinette is unable to identify with the idea of a nation, though here instead of race it is the country itself she cannot reconcile with. The burning of Thornfield she incites at the end of the novel is shown to clearly cycle back to the original burning of Coulibri which brought loss of identity, as we see her claim that ‘Tia was there’. The cyclical nature of the novel mimics and highlights the use of language within the narrative, showing Antoinette to never truly find an identity, stuck between black and white, and with the destruction of both Caloubri and Thornfield and her doubts that this is in fact England. This sense of being stuck within liminal space echoes through the other characters, with Christophine disrupting the colonial narrative of Antoinette’s husband, who struggles to maintain his position as patriarchal master of both Antoinette and Imperial England.
Conclusion:-
The post colonial reading suggest that during European rule and in 19th women had no identity they have to be dependent on their father and after the marriage on their husband, they never became free but in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea Antoinette who is weak and lacking in necessary strength compared to Jane Eyre but at the end of the novel she burnt the house of the Rochester and make herself free from the everything.
Today I write a blog about Cultural Studies as part of the thinking activity assigned by Professor Dilip Barad sir. In this blog, I would like to share my understanding about what is cultural studies and idea of power and what is education.
1)What is Cultural Studies:-
It's hard to define 'culture' in one line but the term culture came under cultural Studies. Cultural Studies is all about seeing the world from today's point of view rather than past and history.
Cultural studies are considered an interdisciplinary field due to its blend of various academic fields of study. The field draws from a mix of sociology, anthropology, politics, history, economics, philosophy, literature, communications, and more. The cultural studies definition can be summarized as a field of academia that examines how meaning is created in social structures with adherence to class, ethnicity, gender, race, ideology, nationality, etc.
Cultural Study is still emerging people still learning cultural studies in the 20th century people believed that cinema makes people worst Plato also applied this Idea and Aristotle broke this idea and give an answer to his question. Culture is not civilization because everybody has a culture but everyone doesn't have civilization.
Cultural Studies is not about praising culture rather it's about criticizing and questioning culture.
1)Understanding of power in Cultural Studies:-
Power is directly connected with the position. 'Where is the position there is power'. Chief Theorist: Michel Foucault was a famous French historian, philosopher and critic, associated with the structuralist and post-structuralist movements. He strongly influenced a wide range of humanistic and social scientific disciplines as well as philosophy. He gave an idea about what is power and how it works. According to him, power is everywhere and nothing can exist without power. Foucault sees not the only negative side of power but positive side also power can be productive and positive. So basic definition of power is that,
"Power is the ability of its holder to make other individuals obedient on whatever basis in some social relationship. In Foucault's theories power is not only seen as brute physical force or faced in one single direction but working net-like creating counterforces".
In short, "power is an ability to make others do what you would have them do".
Power is with the people so if you have to think before speaking then the opposite person is in power and no relationship exists without power.
There are six types of powers in the society:-
1) Physical force
2) Wealth
3) State action
4) Social Norms
5) Idea
6) Numbers
These six branches or we can say the type of power. So very first is a physical force in which if somebody is physically more powerful than you then they can control you. The second is Wealth - if somebody has money then they can control everything with money only. Politics and economy both are in control of the wealthy people and poor people have to obey only to them. The third is State action - how State decisions and power control the people. For example the Idea of 'notebandhi'- during that time people can not do anything as it was State's decision. Fourth is social norms - how networks and fame can control people by giving name of religion and culture to the thing which they want to do from society. Fifth is Idea and Six and the last is Number - a number of the people and groups has decided how powerful they are.
There are three low of power:-
1) power is never Static
2) power is like water
3) power compounds
So how power is related to culture is that if somebody has more power than other groups then they will decide what should be culture or not. Not something in favour of powerful people but something which is against powerful people became part of cultural studies.
2)Why media study is so important in our degital culture?
We can observe today digital culture became an important part of human life which gave us all kind of information about the world through technology and media so it's became more important for the people to understand the language used by media to convince the society it's only possible if we aware about the media Studies and history. Cultural Studies works on showing people's both the side and aspects - good as well as bad to the society. Communication matters because connections matters. Communication is one of the fastest growing fields in today’s labour market. Media has their own language and meaning it's became necessary for the people to understand it. Because on the name of the civilization and freedom people do what they have to do. How things changed with the language language that time how to question government became important and advertisement became good example of it, because it has many angle to see it.
The five filters proposed by Chomsky and Herman are:
1. The size and ownership of mass media corporations
2. The economic model predicated on generating revenue via corporate advertising
3. The reliance on ‘trusted sources’ which frequently means using government or corporate spokespeople who spend vast sums on public relations and lobbying.
4. The ability of financially or politically privileged actors to provide flak, negative responses to critical media coverage
5. An ideological filter described as anticommunism (due to Manufacturing Consent being published during the final years of the Cold war).
So language is manmaid and it can be lier of right. Language has it's own power and ruler know that how to use language and they make people to believe in it. In today's time media is all about benifits not about truth and reality. Media tries to hide truth and reality by covering and praising it. So for the society it becomes necessary to learn the language of the social media.
3)Who can be considered as truly educated person?
Education is not only about studying and scoring high but it's about questing to the authority and power.
Many scholars have also defined education. Such as Swami Vivekanand defined this word as expression of inbuilt perfection of oneself. Similarly, according to Aristotle education is,
“The creation of a sound mind in a sound body”
Thus, a person may be considered to be educated if he develops his knowledge and skills in such a way which ultimately results into his positive contribution in community life. Acquiring knowledge and using it for the happiness and goodness of the society really makes a person educated. It is because of this reason that knowledge acquired through education is essential for any prosperous society.
According to Noam Chomsky used to told in his classes it's not important what we cover in the class, it's important what you discover.
To be truly educated from this point of view means to be in a position to enquire and to create on the basis of the resources available to you which you've come to appreciate and comprehend. To know where to look, to know how to formulate serious questions, to question a standard doctrine if that's appropriate, to find your own way, to shape the questions that are worth pursuing, and to develop the path to pursue them. That means knowing, understanding many things but also, much more important than what you have stored in your mind, to know where to look, how to look, how to question, how to challenge, how to proceed independently, to deal with the challenges that the world presents to you and that you develop in the course of your self education and inquiry and investigations, in cooperation and solidarity with others. And this is the system to educate kindergarten to the graduation. That's what an educational system should cultivate from kindergarten to graduate school, and in the best cases sometimes does, and that leads to people who are, at least by my standards, well educated.
In short cultural Studies is about power, Media and education. What is power, how media study is important and and what is truly educated.
