Deconstruction Example Essay
The meanings of the stories of most seamen, says the narrator, are insidet he narration like the kernel of a cracked nut. I take it the narrator means the meanings of such stories are easily expressed, detachable from the stories and open to paraphrase in other terms, as when one draws an obvious moral: "Crime doesn't pay," or "Honesty is the best policy," or "The truth will out," or "Love conquers all." The figure of the cracked nut suggests that the story itself, its characters and narraive details,are the inedible shell which must be removed and discarded so the meaning of the story may be assimilated. This relation of the story to its meanin gis a particular version of the relation of container to thing contained. . . . The meaning is adjacent to the story, contained with it as nut within shell, but the meaning has no intrinsic similarity or kinship to the story . . . The one happens to touch the other, as shell surrounds nut, as bottle its liquid contents.
It is far otherwise with Marlow's stories. Their meaning--like the meaning of a parable--is outside, not in. It enveloops the tale rather than being enveloped by it. The relation of container and thing contained is reversed. The meaning now contains the tale. Moreover, perhaps because of that enveloping containment, or perhaps for more obscure reasons, the relation of the tale to its meaning is no longer that of dissimilarity and contingency.
--From "Heart of Darkness Revisted" by J. Hillis Miller
It is far otherwise with Marlow's stories. Their meaning--like the meaning of a parable--is outside, not in. It enveloops the tale rather than being enveloped by it. The relation of container and thing contained is reversed. The meaning now contains the tale. Moreover, perhaps because of that enveloping containment, or perhaps for more obscure reasons, the relation of the tale to its meaning is no longer that of dissimilarity and contingency.
--From "Heart of Darkness Revisted" by J. Hillis Miller