A De constructive Approach: On Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" and Yannis Kitsos' "Penelope's Despair"

"The Story of an Hour"Derrida's deconstruction states that the meaning of the story/text includes what is left out of the text or ignored or silenced by it. Because deconstruction is an attack on the very existence of theories and conceptual systems, its exposition by Derrida and others purposely resists logical definitions and explanations, opting instead for linear presentations based on extensive wordplay and puns. Therefore, the text may offer several interpretations that are also valid and it is the reader's task to analyze then the elements into which there may be subtle or explicit connotations/denotations.

Extending the philosophical excursions of Nietzsche and Heidegger, Derrida criticized the entire tradition of Western philosophy's search to discover the essential structure of knowledge and reality, ultimately confronting the limits of human thought.. Derrida criticized the entire tradition of Western philosophy's search to discover the essential structure of knowledge and reality, ultimately confronting the limits of human thought.

Kate Chopin in 1894

Photoportrait of writer Kate Chopin

Jacques Derrida

As an extension of his theory of logocentrism, Derrida posited that all texts are based on hierarchical dualisms (e.g., being/nonbeing, reality/appearance, male/female), where the first element is regarded as stronger and thus essentially true and that all systems of thought have an assumed center, or Archimedean point, upon which they are based. In a deconstructionist reading, this unconscious and unarticulated point is revealed, and in this revelation the binary structure upon which the text rests is imploded. Thus what appears stable and logical is revealed to be illogical and paradoxical, and interpretation is by its very nature misinterpretation.

One of the themes that the story evokes is freedom which has conditional meanings situated at the various parts of the story. Kate Chopin suggests that in certain situations, the death of a loved one may be a blessing. Such situations may include an abusive relationship, or...