Book reviews: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
Deconstruction in Of Grammatology and Jane Eyre
Jacques Derrida’s Of Grammatology discusses the natural deconstruction that is evident in language from the moment of presence. In order to establish his claims, he contrasts the metaphysical tradition with his new method of deconstruction to show that there are elements of deconstruction already inherent in the metaphysical tradition. Derrida proves that doubles are inherent in each single element and that presence actually occurs at the moment when a word is written, rather than at the creation of a mental thought in the logos. To prove his theory, Derrida uses “proto-’ or archi-writing’” to show how the “identity” of a term “requires reference to and supplementation by an-other” to be “itself,” even if that term is one of the basic ideas in the metaphysical tradition (Derrida 300). The influence of Derrida’s deconstructive methods can both be seen in his own writing in Of Grammatology and in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.
Deconstruction, as defined by Jacques Derrida in Of Grammatology, is the theory that in every “single element” is “both itself’ and its others’” so that “presence” is dependent upon a “network of differential relations between terms” that permits “identities to form” (Derrida 301). There is a “ghost effect’” whereby “things” have “no identity of their own apart from their differences or relations” with other ideas (Derrida 302). In order to be understood, a sign must be “bipartite” with two aspects, a “sensible” one, the “signans or signifier,’” and an intelligible one, the “signatum” or signified’” (Derrida 309). These two parts “suppose and require each other,” and the sign is meaningless without them (Derrida 309). Because the metaphysical method cannot differentiate between the signifier and the signified without this differentiation, there is a natural tendency for deconstruction and doubling inherent in signs.
Derrida also explains that there is a link between ideas, the mental thoughts in the logos, spoken words, and written symbols. If mental experiences “reflect or mirror things” in nature and “spoken words’” are the “symbols of mental experience,” then “written words” are “symbols of spoken words” (Derrida 307). These “mental experiences” are “primary symbols” in a “universal language” that is the “same for all” people to allow communication (Derrida 307). Thus, writing is “the signifier of the signifier” instead of the signifier of the signified, because the “signified”
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