Prompts for Deconstruction and "The Things They Carried"

One of the most important things deconstruction can do is remind us to be skeptical of "accepted" or "acceptable" interpretations of literature. Most texts have been analyzed and discussed to the point that there are a few generally accepted, or canonized, interpretations (these are the kinds of standard interpretations you can find on websites like Wikipedia and Sparknotes). Deconstruction does not assert that these are necessarily bad, or inaccurate, interpretations; rather, it reminds us that they, like all interpretations, are ultimately unreliable and have only been given prominence, or privilege, by the ideology of the culture that produced them.

As a literary critic, you will always have ideas about what a text means and the truths it contains; indeed, this is why most of us read literature in the first place - to discover some truth about ourselves or about the world. The value of deconstruction, however, is that it shines a light on the circumstances that lead us to find truth in a text and teaches us what ideology is shaping our truth-seeking and truth-making. It tells us much more about ourselves and our culture than about the text we are reading. Some students do not like deconstruction because they feel as though it invalidates their responses, and I suppose it does in a way, but I prefer to think of it as a tool to understanding our responses. Knowing that what I see in a text is in fact created by me--by the play of signifiers that are uniquely mine, by differance, and by the ideologies I favor--does not make me value them less; in fact, it helps me understand them more. Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living," and for me, deconstruction asserts that the unexamined interpretation of text is not worth possessing or believing in.

I would like your response to "The Things They Carried" to be two paragraphs long. The first paragraph should be a close reading and interpretation of the story. Look for what you think is its main theme, and use supporting details from the text to illustrate that theme. You will probably find many themes in the story, and you can discuss these, but try to distill these into a single interpretation, the one you feel most comfortable with. Your interpretation will be rather New Critical in this way.

Your second paragraph will be a deconstruction of this interpretation, or rather, an explanation of how "The Things They Carried" itself deconstructs this interpretation; you will demonstrate this by finding textual examples that do not agree with, or live up to, the interpretation that seems to be favored. As part of this analysis, you might look at the binary opposites that exist in the text and decide which are favored, or given privilege, but then show how other parts of the text do not favor those same opposites. If your first paragraph is a decision about what O'Brien is doing in "The Things They Carried," then your second paragraph is a discussion about how the text undermines what he is doing and ultimately proves that the meaning of the story is ultimately undecidable. You might also discuss how this process of deconstruction helps you understand the ideology that helped to create the text.

Have fun with this! Enjoy your spring break, and I will see you on Tuesday.