In this blog we will see how to deconstruct a text, with example of “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound, “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos William and “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare. To know more about Deconstruction, check out this blog - Deconstruction.
In a Station of the Metro
A deconstruction of the poem “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound unravels complex layers of meaning. Before we begin the deconstruction, here is the poem:-
In this deconstruction, the attention shifts from the signified (what the words mean) to the signifier (the words themselves). In this poem, words such as “apparition,” “faces,” “crowd,” “petals,” “wet,” “black,” and “bough” have specific signification. However, the meaning resides in the relation between words, not within individual words. For instance, “faces in the crowd” is meaningful in terms of “petals on a wet, black bough”. This is how language works by differences and relations that construct meaning.
The poet creates a visual and metaphorical tie between two things that seem at first unrelated.
Visual Parallels: The faces in the metro are compared to petals on a bough. It is such juxtaposition that imbues and brings forth deeper meaning between the urban life and the nature.
Metaphorical Blending: It’s where the metaphor starts muddling the separation between the two worlds, implying a greater degree of corresponding relationships with each other and places a burden on the reader to look beneath only the given differences on the surface.
Deconstructionism often tries to “subvert” traditional binary oppositions, such as nature vs. civilization. The poem compares faces (civilization) with petals (nature), where it is deduced that the two realms are perhaps not different at all. The poem presents them in a parallel structure, which suggests that the boundaries between nature and civilization are fluid and interconnected.
Deconstruction also shows that texts can have various meanings, often opposed to each other. In comparing the faces to petals, it might work to evoke the transient beauty of human life and moments of fleeting connection in the urban setting. The wet, black bough may suggest permanence and stability, the petals and faces would take with them a suggestion of ephemerality. These played against each other, give the poem an exciting dynamism.
It all comes down to deconstructing “In a Station of the Metro” when facing off with traditional ideas about meaning, representation, and binary opposition that the poem relies on. This makes explicit the reader’s active role in creating meaning, and at the same time, shows in the text fluidity and multiplicity of interpretation engendered.
(Barad)
The Red Wheelbarrow
In the deconstruction of William Carlos Williams's poem "The Red Wheelbarrow," one analyses how the text opposes traditional assumptions about language, meaning, and representation. Here is the poem -
In here, 'depends,' 'red,' 'wheelbarrow,' 'glazed,' 'rain,' 'water,' 'white,' and 'chickens' are signifiers. The meaning does not inhere in the individual words but emerges from their arrangement and relationship to one another.
Deconstruction introduces the concept of DifferAnce, where meaning is always deferred and not fixed. The colors 'red' and 'white,' the objects 'wheelbarrow' and 'chickens' belong to a realm of DifferAnce, the meaning of which each time it's used is derived from each different context applied, from the reader's conception of that meaning. Each word carries traces of other meanings and associations, making the poem a site of many, multiple, and shifting interpretations.
The meaning of the poem is undecidable, hanging there ambiguous. The poem can be read, as the description of a scene and metaphorically as meditation on perception and significance. It, therefore, resists at every turn any one fixed reading. The simplicity of the language goes in an opposite proportion to the complexity that it could take in meaning, therefore making it an invitation to multiple readings and interpretations.
Deconstruction aims at undermining traditional binary oppositions. The poem blurs the distinction between what is important and what is trivial by suggesting that 'so much depends' upon what appears to be an everyday, mundane object—a wheelbarrow. The juxtaposition of the natural (rain, chickens) and the man-made (wheelbarrow) challenges the rigid separation between these realms, suggesting a more fluid relationship.
Deconstruction explores the relationship between absence and presence in a text. At no time is the context in which the wheelbarrow and chickens are put described, it is only implied. This lack of something makes a reader complete on their own some sections of the text and stresses the meaning developed through what is here and what is not here. This style leaves a lot unsaid, and readers are led to think about what was left out of the poem as it could be significant.
That is to say, deconstructing 'The Red Wheelbarrow' takes you through how the poem challenges conventional supposition concerning language, meaning, and representation. It accents fluidity and multiplicity of interpretation, the role of the reader in that process, and, lastly, interconnectedness among texts. That's how its form, structure, and minimalist writing mode bring out its elusive shifting meanings.
(Barad)
Sonnet 18
Before we begin the deconstruction of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, here is the original poem -
‘Summer,’ ‘temperate,’ ‘rough winds,’ ‘decline,’ ‘change course,’ ‘fade’ are the signifiers that provoke various associations. The meaning of these associations is derived from the relative relationship these words have with other words. Meaning, therefore, depends not on a singular articulation but on a cluster of articulations. The words do not have definite meanings but are ascribed with respect to their play within the poem. For instance, “summer” inter-textually derives meaning from the beloved and the concept of temporality. The poem is thus ambiguous in itself.
The poem can yield two readings-literally as a comparison with the beloved to a summer’s day and metaphorically as a dramatization of power play. It, therefore, shies away from univocal interpretation. The poem can be read differently, and any of them only discloses different shades of the text.
Deconstructionism puts forward the idea of differAnce: meaning always deferred, never fixed. Here, words such as “eternal” and “fade” are in a state of differAnce; their meaning changes with context and the reader’s interpretation of them. The beloved’s beauty is eternal, yet at the same time, that eternity depends on this poem. Each of its words represents a trace of other meanings and associations, so the poem is a site of countless interpretations in flux.
The poem sets up a binary opposition between nature (summer) and art (the poem). It appears to place the beloved above nature in that they are eternalised through the poem. But all is undone by the fact that the immortality of the beloved depends on the poem, and so, in different ways, both nature and art are passing.
Deconstruction investigates the dynamics between absence and presence in the text. The fact of the beloved’s actual physical presence in the poem is absent; instead, their beauty and immortality are constructed through the poem’s language. Thus, in this line, the word “when” simply means that immortality for the beloved can come about only if and when it can be retained in the poem. This again brings out the notion of the beloved not being intrinsically immortal and needing the poem’s existence to remain so.
In other words, deconstructing Sonnet 18 implies investigating how this text rocks and shakes traditional assumptions about language, meaning, and representation. It is essential for its fluidity and multiplicity of meaning, the active role that the reader plays in constructing meanings, and the intertextual connections that the texts make among themselves. In its complexity and transience, the structure, form, and conditionality of language in the poem emphasise that beauty and immortality are not stable things.
For better understating of Deconstruction of Sonnet 18, check out this Ted-ed lesson:-
Deconstructive Reading of Sonnet 18
For more information on how to deconstruct a text, you can check out this video:-
Words - 1458
Images - 4
Videos - 1
References -
Barad, Dilip. (2024). Deconstructive Analysis of Ezra Pound's 'In a Station of the Metro' and William Carlos Williams's 'The Red Wheelbarrow'. 10.13140/RG.2.2.35052.37768.
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