Transgressions: A quantum approach to literary deconstruction
André Brink · Journal of Literary Studies · 1985
Summary Deconstruction has not taken root in the Anglo‐Saxon world and is generally treated with suspicion outside France because it threatens the comfortable certainty of language and meaning. Both the terms of reference and the development of deconstruction can be compared to the development in the natural sciences of quantum physics and the theory of relativity. Quantum physics has absorbed and transcended the Newtonian notion of a stable physical world by advocating that light consists of both particles and waves. This seemed in traditional terms to be impossible: it was advocating two mutually exclusive forms of ‘being’. What this meant in philosophy (and literature) was that reality was no longer perceived as stable and predictable. The word or the sign was no longer simply seen as a reflection of reality (particle) but played an active part in creating ‘reality’ (wave). Subsequently modern theorists have entered the myriad worlds of interpretations ‐ a state of transgression (Derrida) or permanent revolution (Trotsky). The application of deconstruction is not a destruction of reality but rather a deconstruction: meaning is posited as referential and changing and not as non‐existent. The implications for literary studies is that a notion such as character, for example, can no longer be seen as a single, self‐enclosed unit/essence, but is rather relational. Likewise narrative is part of, but different from, the story. In short, the convergence of text and reader brings the literary work ‘into existence’ (Iser), in the same way that the scientist cannot observe reality without changing it.