Acquitting Derrida's Deconstruction: Emily Dickinson as a Major Witness of Fruitfulness

Abstract

Jacques Derrida is a French philosopher who has been accused of destroying the reliability of decades of knowledge since Plato until the 1960s. This accusation has been launched against his bold notion of Deconstruction that denies any possibility of a definite meaning. The notion has appeared to attach hollowness to everything in the world leaving people with shaking foundations. Hence, it has been wrongly received by many thinkers like: Renï؟½ï؟½ Wellek, John M. Ellis, M. H. Abrams, and others. Likewise, Emily Dickinson, the 19th century poet, has been always attached to gloominess, since life and death are her main interests, and to feminism, as her poetry has been always approached from a feminist view. This study tends to break these misunderstood stereotyped views regarding Derrida and Dickinson by shedding lights on the fruitful and unconventional aspects of Derrida's Deconstruction and Dickinson's poetry. The study will introduce an ignored side of Derrida's Deconstruction that calls for change instea fixity and for construction instead of deconstruction. This side will be shown through the work of Dickinson that breaks its stereotyped notions once adopting Deconstruction. Dickinson's poems may suggest different interpretations: some through extensive play of words, some through embracing different theories, and others through tackling the concept of divinity unconventionally. In this sense, the study suggests Deconstruction as an important tool for the critical understanding of the elusive nature of literature in general and poetry in particular. Its flexible open-ended nature turns it into a word game, a gate towards different theories, and a means towards the understanding of divinity. It even gives Dickinson a contemporary voice, as her poetry can be critically read from different points of view. Accordingly, the study emphasizes the fruitfulness of Deconstruction by suggesting Dickinson's apparent agreement with Derrida's notions as a proof to introduce Dickinson as a deconstructionist herself.