Reading Derrida's deconstruction and deconstructive reading of Faulkner's 'Mosquitoes', 'The Sound and the Fury' and 'Absalom, Absalom!' (Jacques Derrida, William Faulkner)

In studying literary work, we should not overlook what Jacques Derrida argues with regard to language and text, considering that his abundant works lead the trend of contemporary literary theories and practices. Derrida's thoughts suggest how our reading of literary texts should be done. That is to say, in the context of Derrida's deconstruction, we are urged to trace the playful operation of language in a text and analyze how the playful operation exposes the text's unstable system of meaning. Noting the ways in which a text plays with its settled system of meaning is important because it can give us access to new modes of thinking.; William Faulkner's texts seek to reach beyond the given system of meaning. For instance, in The Sound and the Fury (1929), Quentin, the eldest son of the Compsons, is not in control of his consciousness on the last day of his life; he is often not aware of what he is doing. Thus, the decreasing sense of subjectivity that Quentin has of himself is expressed by the small letter “i”: “i you don't believe i am serious and he i think you are too serious to give me any cause for alarm…and i i wasn't lying i wasnt lying” (160). Miss Rosa's paradoxical relationship with Thomas Sutpen in Absalom, Absalom! (1936) is implied by the synthetic word “nothusband” (3). As a result, this makes it impossible for each text to form a stable set of meanings; the various elements of language, which enter into play undermining one another's authority, constitute each text's system of meaning as unstable. From this viewpoint, Faulkner's texts go beyond simple description or representation to display the dynamic play of language.; In this dissertation, I will read Faulkner's Mosquitoes (1927), The Sound and the Fury, and Absalom, Absalom! from Derrida's deconstructive viewpoint. Mosquitoes is noteworthy for it reveals Faulkner's concerns with language and art. The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! are distinguished from the rest of Faulkner's novels in that they have complicated systems of meaning.