Voice, temporality, and narrative in the thought of Jacques Derrida

Olga Vyacheslavovna Medvedeva, Purdue University

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to revisit some of the philosophical and theoretical foundations of Jacques Derrida's deconstruction in order to demonstrate their importance for our interpretation of literature, especially of the problem of time in it. In particular, I show that that Derrida's views on the relation between time and language are intricately linked to his deconstruction of the concept of speech in the metaphysical philosophy and that they therefore cannot be limited to his critique of linguistics and structuralism. By arguing for the importance of the concept of voice to Derrida’s deconstruction in the context of the question of literature the dissertation pursues three interactive lines of inquiry. First, it explores more deeply the mutual reciprocity of linguistic and philosophical aspects of Derrida’s deconstruction. It does so by appealing, on the one hand, to Derrida’s deconstruction of the philosophers, such as Plato, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Freud, and Lacan, and, on the other, to Derrida’s readings of the literary texts by Kafka, Joyce, Blanchot, Ponge, and Baudelaire. Second, the study argues for the more nuanced ways of reading and interpreting literature that Derrida’s work helps us to achieve. By showing how speech and time are closely intertwined in the novels by Woolf, Joyce, Forster, and Faulkner, this study proposes a reconfigured approach to the modernist conception of time in literature. Third, the aim of this dissertation is to show how Derrida’s critique of the metaphysical concept of voice problematizes some of the categories of narrative poetics. In particular, I argue that by displacing the ideal unity of speech and meaning, narrative also displaces the difference between story and discourse in it, as well as subverts any coherent or final presentation of itself as narrative. In addition, the dissertation shows how the interdependence of speech and temporality in narrative leads to a reconfigured understanding of the relation between ethics and narrative. By articulating a connection between the problem of speech and the question of otherness in Derrida’s deconstruction, I thus argue for a departure from the more traditional Levinasean and Bakhtinian approaches to narrative ethics. Finally, I show how the deconstruction of the concept of speech in Derrida allows for a different approach to the question madness in literature. As I argue, the relation between madness and literature is based, in Derrida, on his critique of the communicative, pragmatic, and intersubjective aspects of language and, as a result, this relation cannot be reduced to the psychoanalytical problematic of madness.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Plotnitsky, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Modern literature|Romance literature

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