Postmodernism Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 52 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Postmodernism.

Postmodernism Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 52 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Postmodernism.
This section contains 832 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the Postmodernism Study Guide

Deconstruction

This is the term created by Derrida that defines the basic premise of Postmodernism. It does not mean destruction, but rather it is a critique of the criteria of certainty, identity, and truth.

Derrida says that all communication is characterized by uncertainty because there is no definitive link between the signifier (a word) and the signified (the object to which the word refers). Once a text is written it ceases to have a meaning until a reader reads it. Derrida says that there is nothing but the text and that it is not possible to construe a meaning for a text using a reference to anything outside the text. The text has many internal meanings that are in conflict with themselves (called reflexivity or self-referential) and as a result there is no solid and guaranteed meaning to a text. The text is also controlled by what is not...

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This section contains 832 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the Postmodernism Study Guide
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Postmodernism from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.