SOURCE: Kreyling, Michael. “Construing Brown's Wieland: Ambiguity and Derridean ‘Freeplay.’” Studies in the Novel 14, no. 1 (spring 1982): 43-54.

In the following essay, Kreyling explores Wieland's decentered universe by means of the Derridean theory of endless freeplay.

Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed.

Emerson wrote in the hortative mode. This passage from “Self-Reliance” must be read as a wish in the blank face of fact: would that the voluntary acts of the mind and one's involuntary perceptions were as surely distinguishable as night and day; would that a perfect faith in either one, or in the distinction between the two, were possible. Thus would ambiguity...