@Sataniel what definition you prefer for deconstruction of tropes ?

 

@Methos: The only use of the deconstruction should be the one derrived from Derrida.

 

I'm all for learning new stuff, and i'm totally noob when it comes to literature, tried to understand what is Derrida, even entered
https://litlove.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/derrida-for-dummies/

If I understand correctly, deconstruction of tropes, is to define the trope (if you can, or at least describe it) and than pick it apart, or offer other possible outcomes and continuances ?

 

I agree. It makes my teeth itch when people use 'deconstruct' as a synonym for 'analyze,' 'undermine' or 'subvert,' but then I wouldn't want to inflict reading Derrida on anyone.

tl,dr unrelated to Harry Potter:

For those who care, deconstruction in its original sense was both a way to read texts and a philosophy of language. To 'deconstruct' a text was to look for the blind spots in its language or premises: to find the spots where it means too little, too much, or not what the writer thinks it does. It resulted in a lot of nonsensical gibberish that passed for literary criticism and kept a lot of English Professors in jobs in the 80s and 90s.

As a philosophy of language, it's the idea that words are inherently ambiguous. They can never be pinned down to a single, univocal meaning. They don't refer to anything in 'reality,' but only to other words, other 'signifiers,' in an unending chain. English professors and French philosophers believed they had discovered that the very foundations of logic, reason, and science were flawed. Analytic philosophers and scientists obviously took exception to this.

For instance, when Derrida rightly pointed out that 'nature' and 'culture' are often indistinguishable from each other, literary critics took that to mean that 'nature is always already culture'--i.e, the two concepts are so hopelessly entangled as to be meaningless. This judgment applies to every word or concept. Language is incapable of precision--it's all slippery sophistry and Reason itself is just linguistic sleight-of-hand that allows The Man to keep us under control. Free solipsism and oppression for all!

Cue thirty years of academic bickering that could have been avoided if French philosophers understood what a Venn diagram was.

Thus endeth the pretentious derailment. My apologies.