The video explains deconstructive criticism in an easy way by using Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 as an example. Deconstruction is a way of reading texts that was introduced by Jacques Derrida. It focuses on how language creates meaning that is not fixed or clear, but instead full of play and uncertainty. Deconstruction looks at how a text often questions itself and how opposites in the text, like nature and the beloved, or strong and weak, are not as stable as they first seem. In Sonnet 18, the poet compares the beloved to a summer’s day but ends up suggesting that the beloved is better than nature. This creates a hidden power struggle where nature seems to be shown as weaker or less important. The poet also talks about making beauty last forever through his poetry. But deconstruction shows that the poem may not only be about the beloved’s beauty — it could also be about the poet’s own power to give immortality through writing. The video shows that the poem’s meaning becomes unclear or undecidable when read in this way. The opposites, like beloved and nature, start to blur together. The poem seems to praise both the beauty of the beloved and the power of poetry itself. In the end, deconstruction helps us see how language in a text can create many meanings and challenge its own ideas.
Ezra Pound’s poem
“In a Station of the Metro”:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
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When we read “In a Station of the Metro” through deconstruction, we see that the poem’s meaning is not clear or stable. The poem compares the faces in a metro station to petals on a wet, black tree branch. At first, it seems like a simple, beautiful image, but deconstruction shows that this comparison creates confusion rather than clarity. The word “apparition” suggests that the faces are ghost-like, making us question whether they are real or just images in the poet’s mind. The faces and petals seem connected by the poem’s words, but they are also very different one belongs to the human world, the other to nature. This creates tension because the comparison both links and separates them at the same time. The poem does not give us a final or certain meaning about what the faces are or how they relate to the petals. Instead, it shows how language itself creates these uncertain images. The poem’s structure, with its short, quiet lines and soft sounds, makes us focus on the words and the feelings they create rather than on any clear message. In this way, deconstruction reveals that the poem’s meaning is full of gaps, undecidability, and shifting ideas, and that language plays with meaning rather than fixing it.
“The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams :-
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
At first, “The Red Wheelbarrow” looks like a simple poem that talks about real things a red wheelbarrow, rainwater, and white chickens. It seems like the poet is telling us that these ordinary objects are very important because he starts with the line “so much depends / upon”. But when we read this poem in a deconstructive way, we see that the meaning is not as simple as it looks. The poem names clear things, but these things seem too perfect. The red of the wheelbarrow and the white of the chickens are clean and bright, like in a toy set or a children’s picture book. The poem doesn’t describe any mud, shadows, or dirt things you would expect on a real farm.
Deconstruction shows that the poem is not just showing real objects; it is creating an image using words, and that image may not match reality. The meaning of the poem doesn’t really come from the actual wheelbarrow or chickens. It comes from how the words make us imagine them. The poem makes us feel like these objects are important, but it doesn’t say why or how. The words make us believe in the importance, but at the same time, they make us question what is so important about these objects.
The poem’s short lines and simple rhythm also pull our focus to the sound and shape of the words. We start to notice the language itself rather than the things it describes. In this way, deconstruction shows us that the poem does not have one fixed meaning. The meaning is open, and it changes depending on how we read it. The poem shows how language can both create meaning and make us unsure of that meaning at the same time.
Dylan Thomas’s poem :-
“After the first death, there is no other.”
When we read Dylan Thomas’s poem in a deconstructive way, we see that its meaning is not simple or clear. The poet says in the title and in the poem that he refuses to mourn the child’s death in the usual way. But actually, the whole poem sounds like mourning. This is a contradiction the poet says one thing but does the opposite. This shows that language does not always say exactly what we mean. At the end of the poem, the line “After the first death there is no other” also confuses us. If we call something the “first” death, it makes us think there must be a second, or more. In the poem, the poet keeps changing between talking about big, timeless things like darkness, the sea, and London’s history and the personal, sad event of the child’s death. These changes break the flow of the poem and make it hard to find one clear meaning. The poet also tries not to use common, overused words about death, but in the end, he still uses big, formal words, like calling the child “London’s daughter.” Deconstruction helps us see that the poem’s language is full of tension and different meanings. The poet cannot fully control these meanings, and the message of the poem keeps changing, showing that meaning is always open and not fixed.
Thank you for reading...
Reference:-
Barad, Dilip. “Deconstructive Analysis of Ezra Pound's 'In a Station of the Metro' and William Carlos Williams's 'The Red Wheelbarrow.'” Research Gate, 03 July 2024, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381943844_Deconstructive_Analysis_of_Ezra_Pound's_'In_a_Station_of_the_Metro'_and_William_Carlos_Williams's_'The_Red_Wheelbarrow'. Accessed 03 July 2024.
Barad, D. (2023, July 23). How to Deconstruct a Text. Bhavngar, Gujarat, India: DoEMKBU YouTube Channel. Retrieved 7 3, 2024, from https://youtu.be/JDWDIEpgMGI?si=WnmtixfH9lFYj-b
Belsey, C. (2002). Poststructuralism (First Indian Edition 2006 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Pound, E. (1913, April). In a Station of a Metro. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Retrieved 7 3, 2024, from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12675/in-astation-of-the-metro
Williams, W. C. (1938). The Red Wheelbarrow. In C. MacGowan (Ed.), The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939. New Directions Publishing Corporation. Retrieved 7 3, 2024, from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45502/the-red-wheelbarrow
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