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“Everyday Use ”

“Everyday Use ”. Critical Theory: Deconstruction. A brief introduction…. In order to understand Deconstruction, let’s talk for a moment abut Structuralism, which claims… Every word/idea only gets its significance from its relationship to other words/ideas.

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“Everyday Use ”

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  1. “Everyday Use” Critical Theory: Deconstruction

  2. A brief introduction… • In order to understand Deconstruction, let’s talk for a moment abut Structuralism, which claims… • Every word/idea only gets its significance from its relationship to other words/ideas. • This complex web of relationship creates a stable, structure that can be described and understood.

  3. What is Deconstruction? • In terms of literary theory, Deconstruction rejects the Structuralist idea that any literary work has a stable, closed meaning, or a “center” around which the rest of the work revolves. • Deconstructive critics look at the way that plural, multiple meanings occur in works of literature, and how those multiple meanings interact with one another. • Deconstructive critics also look for ways in which either/or readings (usually about pairs of opposites called binaries) in a given text break down or become unstable.

  4. What questions might Deconstructive Critics ask? • What ideas or characters seem to be in opposition in this work, and how does the work avoid privileging (seeming to give preference to) one of them? In other words, how does the work create ambiguity? • What interpretive possibilities are presented by this ambiguity? • How do various possible meanings presented by the text play off of each other?

  5. Questions to Begin Our Discussion • What ideas/characters seem to be opposed to each other in this story? Where is there conflict between opposites? • What similarities do you notice between this story and Death of a Salesman?

  6. Questions for “Everyday Use” p. 312 • What are some of the ideas that seem to be in opposition in this short story? • Does the text (not the narrator…) “take sides”? Why or why not? • How does this story deal with the “everyday use” vs. “reverence and preservation” binary (remember, a binary is a pair of opposites)? Does it privilege one over the other? • What multiple meanings does this story produce? • Were there points in the story when your sympathy was with the narrator? With Wangero/Dee? • Who should have gotten the quilts? I know who gets them in the end, but who should have gotten them? Why?

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