Hello everyone! As I had said before, here is our second paper, on Deconstruction, "The Fly", and "A Dead Woman's Secret"...
Hugs!!
Flor
SILENCE AS RESENTMENT:
The Unsaid in “The Fly” and “A Dead Woman’s Secret” in the Light of Derrida’s Deconstruction TheoryFlorencia Deminicis
Deconstruction can be regarded as the literary and philosophical theory of the postmodern era. Establishing in the first place the death of structuralism, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida caused a revolution in the academic world of the 1960’s when his ideas questioned the very foundations of Western thought. Non-conclusive answers, changing meanings, open endings: Deconstruction radically alters the way readers perceive and understand the text in front of their eyes, giving them the power to rewrite it through the various characteristics of this theory. Taking the marginal as the centre, moving the centre to the margins; foregrounding the background; putting the emphasis on the second element of a binary; focusing on the gaps, the absences, the unsaid: Deconstruction opens readers’ minds to the “What if…?”
"Deconstructive readings focus -- intently, obsessively -- on the metaphors writers use to make their points. Their purpose is to demonstrate, through comparisons of a work's arguments and its metaphors, that writers contradict themselves -- not just occasionally, but invariably -- and that these contradictions reflect deep fissures in the very foundations of Western culture". (Stephens, 1991)
Deconstruction does not attempt to be the ultimate answer to literary inquiries, but enlarges the ownership of a text, shifting it from the exclusive place of the author’s hands and making it available for everybody’s interpretation.
“Deconstruction doesn't assume that there is, even if only in principle, an end to the work of deconstruction. The point of deconstruction is to show where something has been omitted, not because of the blindness of the author, not because the critic is smarter or better, but because that is the way things are. There are always things I don't know, though in a very real way that I don't know them is part of what I know.” (Faulconer, 1998).
As an assumption of the deconstruction theory we find the importance of the “unsaid” in a text, which may reveal more than what is said. “There is (…) no presence without absence, no absence without presence…” (Derrida, 1989) What is unsaid defines what is said, and vice versa, changing the perspective from which we regard the text.
"The common assumption of deconstruction (…) is that language necessarily "fails" to say everything, to remember everything, but that it nevertheless says something, even something about what it fails to recover (…)What the text excludes shows itself in various traces within the very texts that do the forgetting. Derrida is interested in this "logic" of saying and not saying, of inclusion and exclusion, of presence and absence, of speaking and silence, of memory and forgetting". (Faulconer, 1998)
The unsaid in both “The Fly” by K. Mansfield and “A Dead Woman’s Secret” by G. de Maupassant can provide the reader with a clearer portrait of the main characters as their silence depicts what might be considered as the underlying feeling behind their actions: Resentment.
In “The Fly” we are introduced to The Boss, whose young son has died in the war; a fact which has rushed the moment of the boss’s death although he goes on living. Silence strikes us throughout the story: Woodifield’s remark about the boy’s grave encounters a strong wall of apparent indifference and words not said:
"'That was it', he said, heaving himself out of his chair. "I thought you'd like to know. The girls were in Belgium last week having a look at poor Reggie's grave, and they happened to come across your boy's. They're quite near each other, it seems." Old Woodifield paused, but the boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard. "The girls were delighted with the way the place is kept," piped the old voice. "Beautifully looked after. Couldn't be better if they were at home. You've not been across, have yer?" "No, no!" For various reasons the boss had not been across. "There's miles of it," quavered old Woodifield, "and it's all as neat as a garden. Flowers growing on all the graves. Nice broad paths." It was plain from his voice how much he liked a nice broad path. The pause came again…"(Mansfield, 1922)
As the story continues, the boss spends a considerable while torturing a fly which has fallen inside his inkpot; dropping ink on it every time it is about to start flying again. Admiring the fly’s resistance and willingness to recover at first, he eventually kills it, in the most absolute silence. The boss resents the fact that a fly can live while his son cannot; in a much broader interpretation he resents that other people’s worlds keep on turning while his own has fallen to pieces. “The day had come when Macey had handed him the telegram that brought the whole place crashing about his head. "Deeply regret to inform you ..." And he had left the office a broken man, with his life in ruins.” (Mansfield, 1922) He cannot cry, he cannot even talk about it; his silence has overcome him, as well as his resentment, the bitter feeling of being unable to forgive. The possibility of his getting angry with his son is non-existent: the boss’s resentment towards his offspring for having died must find a different object since the boy is no longer there. The object is the fly, and he damages it without words. Words are of no use, the unsaid expresses in a clearer way his feelings. The boss will not speak about his son as we could have expected, but his silence, together with his killing the fly, speak about his resentment precisely through the very absence of speech.
In “A Dead Woman’s Secret” the reader can find resentment, silence and a deceased loved one as well. A judge and a nun cry hysterically by their mother’s body, a woman they (and everybody else) have considered a saint so far. While searching her personal belongings for some old family letters, they come across unexpected mail: Love letters, ardent and passionate, dateless, addressed to their mother and signed by a man who is not their father. The reading of those letters is followed once more by rotund silence. Weeping and laments are over, the siblings leave the room without uttering a single word of inquiry, discontent or even comprehension: Such is the meaning of the discovery. Their judgement is silent.
"Standing erect, severe as when sitting on the bench, he looked unmoved at the dead woman. The nun, straight as a statue, tears trembling in the corners of her eyes, was watching her brother, waiting. Then he crossed the room slowly, went to the window and stood there, gazing out into the dark night. When he turned around again Sister Eulalie, her eyes dry now, was still standing near the bed, her head bent down. He stepped forward, quickly picked up the letters and threw them pell- mell back into the drawer. Then he closed the curtains of the bed. When daylight made the candles on the table turn pale the son slowly left his armchair, and without looking again at the mother upon whom he had passed sentence, severing the tie that united her to son and daughter, he said slowly: 'Let us now retire, sister.'" (de Maupassant, w/d).
A dead woman who cannot appeal the sentence her children have passed upon her, two children whose immaculate image of their mother crumbles to the ground. Speechless anger addressed to one who is no longer there. The unsaid in this story lets us know about the children’s resentment. Their lack of words marks their grudge: Neither forgiveness, nor understanding, or even amazement come to life inside the children. They bitterly resent their mother for not being who they thought she was, and they prove it without saying it.
Silence is a remarkable characteristic of both stories. In the light of Derrida’s work, that silence is defined as the unsaid, and that unsaid proves to be more explicit than the said. It gives the readers an insight of the character’s feelings, feelings which would not have been evident if the focus had been only on speech and the said. The characters in both stories hold a bitter grudge which will only become greater. There is no chance of resolution for any of them: the objects of their resentment have died. The mother has died for the children, and so have the fly and the world died for the boss, together with his son. None of the characters will speak: Words are of no use to express their unsolvable bitterness; there is no better proof of it than their impenetrable silence. “Often what is not spoken is a matter of meaning. Often, however, it is not merely a matter of meaning. Deconstruction can be a matter of showing whom the text has omitted, overlooked, or forgotten” (Faulconer, 1998). It is the power of the unsaid.
References
-Derrida, J. “Psyche: Inventions of the Other” (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1989)
-Faulconer, J. “Deconstruction” (1998):http://jamesfaulconer.byu.edu/ (20/10/2009)
-Mansfield, K. "The Fly" (The Nation & Athenaeum, London, 1922)
-de Maupassant, G. "A Dead Woman’s Secret" (from the British Council’s ELT e-reading group):http://www.classicreader.com/book/1179/1/# (20/10/2009)
-Stephens, M. “Deconstructing Jacques Derrida; The Most Reviled Professor in the World Defends his Diabolically Difficult Theory” (Los Angeles Times Magazine, Los Angeles, 1991)
The Unsaid in “The Fly” and “A Dead Woman’s Secret” in the Light of Derrida’s Deconstruction TheoryFlorencia Deminicis
Deconstruction can be regarded as the literary and philosophical theory of the postmodern era. Establishing in the first place the death of structuralism, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida caused a revolution in the academic world of the 1960’s when his ideas questioned the very foundations of Western thought. Non-conclusive answers, changing meanings, open endings: Deconstruction radically alters the way readers perceive and understand the text in front of their eyes, giving them the power to rewrite it through the various characteristics of this theory. Taking the marginal as the centre, moving the centre to the margins; foregrounding the background; putting the emphasis on the second element of a binary; focusing on the gaps, the absences, the unsaid: Deconstruction opens readers’ minds to the “What if…?”
"Deconstructive readings focus -- intently, obsessively -- on the metaphors writers use to make their points. Their purpose is to demonstrate, through comparisons of a work's arguments and its metaphors, that writers contradict themselves -- not just occasionally, but invariably -- and that these contradictions reflect deep fissures in the very foundations of Western culture". (Stephens, 1991)
Deconstruction does not attempt to be the ultimate answer to literary inquiries, but enlarges the ownership of a text, shifting it from the exclusive place of the author’s hands and making it available for everybody’s interpretation.
“Deconstruction doesn't assume that there is, even if only in principle, an end to the work of deconstruction. The point of deconstruction is to show where something has been omitted, not because of the blindness of the author, not because the critic is smarter or better, but because that is the way things are. There are always things I don't know, though in a very real way that I don't know them is part of what I know.” (Faulconer, 1998).
As an assumption of the deconstruction theory we find the importance of the “unsaid” in a text, which may reveal more than what is said. “There is (…) no presence without absence, no absence without presence…” (Derrida, 1989) What is unsaid defines what is said, and vice versa, changing the perspective from which we regard the text.
"The common assumption of deconstruction (…) is that language necessarily "fails" to say everything, to remember everything, but that it nevertheless says something, even something about what it fails to recover (…)What the text excludes shows itself in various traces within the very texts that do the forgetting. Derrida is interested in this "logic" of saying and not saying, of inclusion and exclusion, of presence and absence, of speaking and silence, of memory and forgetting". (Faulconer, 1998)
The unsaid in both “The Fly” by K. Mansfield and “A Dead Woman’s Secret” by G. de Maupassant can provide the reader with a clearer portrait of the main characters as their silence depicts what might be considered as the underlying feeling behind their actions: Resentment.
In “The Fly” we are introduced to The Boss, whose young son has died in the war; a fact which has rushed the moment of the boss’s death although he goes on living. Silence strikes us throughout the story: Woodifield’s remark about the boy’s grave encounters a strong wall of apparent indifference and words not said:
"'That was it', he said, heaving himself out of his chair. "I thought you'd like to know. The girls were in Belgium last week having a look at poor Reggie's grave, and they happened to come across your boy's. They're quite near each other, it seems." Old Woodifield paused, but the boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard. "The girls were delighted with the way the place is kept," piped the old voice. "Beautifully looked after. Couldn't be better if they were at home. You've not been across, have yer?" "No, no!" For various reasons the boss had not been across. "There's miles of it," quavered old Woodifield, "and it's all as neat as a garden. Flowers growing on all the graves. Nice broad paths." It was plain from his voice how much he liked a nice broad path. The pause came again…"(Mansfield, 1922)
As the story continues, the boss spends a considerable while torturing a fly which has fallen inside his inkpot; dropping ink on it every time it is about to start flying again. Admiring the fly’s resistance and willingness to recover at first, he eventually kills it, in the most absolute silence. The boss resents the fact that a fly can live while his son cannot; in a much broader interpretation he resents that other people’s worlds keep on turning while his own has fallen to pieces. “The day had come when Macey had handed him the telegram that brought the whole place crashing about his head. "Deeply regret to inform you ..." And he had left the office a broken man, with his life in ruins.” (Mansfield, 1922) He cannot cry, he cannot even talk about it; his silence has overcome him, as well as his resentment, the bitter feeling of being unable to forgive. The possibility of his getting angry with his son is non-existent: the boss’s resentment towards his offspring for having died must find a different object since the boy is no longer there. The object is the fly, and he damages it without words. Words are of no use, the unsaid expresses in a clearer way his feelings. The boss will not speak about his son as we could have expected, but his silence, together with his killing the fly, speak about his resentment precisely through the very absence of speech.
In “A Dead Woman’s Secret” the reader can find resentment, silence and a deceased loved one as well. A judge and a nun cry hysterically by their mother’s body, a woman they (and everybody else) have considered a saint so far. While searching her personal belongings for some old family letters, they come across unexpected mail: Love letters, ardent and passionate, dateless, addressed to their mother and signed by a man who is not their father. The reading of those letters is followed once more by rotund silence. Weeping and laments are over, the siblings leave the room without uttering a single word of inquiry, discontent or even comprehension: Such is the meaning of the discovery. Their judgement is silent.
"Standing erect, severe as when sitting on the bench, he looked unmoved at the dead woman. The nun, straight as a statue, tears trembling in the corners of her eyes, was watching her brother, waiting. Then he crossed the room slowly, went to the window and stood there, gazing out into the dark night. When he turned around again Sister Eulalie, her eyes dry now, was still standing near the bed, her head bent down. He stepped forward, quickly picked up the letters and threw them pell- mell back into the drawer. Then he closed the curtains of the bed. When daylight made the candles on the table turn pale the son slowly left his armchair, and without looking again at the mother upon whom he had passed sentence, severing the tie that united her to son and daughter, he said slowly: 'Let us now retire, sister.'" (de Maupassant, w/d).
A dead woman who cannot appeal the sentence her children have passed upon her, two children whose immaculate image of their mother crumbles to the ground. Speechless anger addressed to one who is no longer there. The unsaid in this story lets us know about the children’s resentment. Their lack of words marks their grudge: Neither forgiveness, nor understanding, or even amazement come to life inside the children. They bitterly resent their mother for not being who they thought she was, and they prove it without saying it.
Silence is a remarkable characteristic of both stories. In the light of Derrida’s work, that silence is defined as the unsaid, and that unsaid proves to be more explicit than the said. It gives the readers an insight of the character’s feelings, feelings which would not have been evident if the focus had been only on speech and the said. The characters in both stories hold a bitter grudge which will only become greater. There is no chance of resolution for any of them: the objects of their resentment have died. The mother has died for the children, and so have the fly and the world died for the boss, together with his son. None of the characters will speak: Words are of no use to express their unsolvable bitterness; there is no better proof of it than their impenetrable silence. “Often what is not spoken is a matter of meaning. Often, however, it is not merely a matter of meaning. Deconstruction can be a matter of showing whom the text has omitted, overlooked, or forgotten” (Faulconer, 1998). It is the power of the unsaid.
References
-Derrida, J. “Psyche: Inventions of the Other” (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1989)
-Faulconer, J. “Deconstruction” (1998):http://jamesfaulconer.byu.edu/ (20/10/2009)
-Mansfield, K. "The Fly" (The Nation & Athenaeum, London, 1922)
-de Maupassant, G. "A Dead Woman’s Secret" (from the British Council’s ELT e-reading group):http://www.classicreader.com/book/1179/1/# (20/10/2009)
-Stephens, M. “Deconstructing Jacques Derrida; The Most Reviled Professor in the World Defends his Diabolically Difficult Theory” (Los Angeles Times Magazine, Los Angeles, 1991)
