To begin, it is important to first define what it means to deconstruct logocentricsm specifically, and thus define, in very simple terms, what deconstruction aims to do. Jonathan Culler, in “Semiotics and Deconstruction,” offers a helpful definition: “To deconstruct logocentrism is to show that what was taken to be the truth of the world or the ground of an enquiry is in fact a construct that has been imposed and which is contradicted by certain results of the enquiry it founds” (138). It also important to note that in deconstructing these two oppositions, meaning over meaninglessness and life over death, the opposition is not reversed. Norman Melchertt, in The Great Conversation, using the example of speech over writing, explains that:
The claim is rather that the characteristics of what was held to be secondary and derivative are already, and necessarily, found in what was thought to be basic and primary. It is not, then, that the speech/writing dichotomy is simply overturned, so that it becomes writing/speech, with writing now in the primary spot, but that a deeper sense of “writing” is discovered that underwrites both terms. (707-708)
It is not that Gabriel discovers meaninglessness or death to be more important than their classical primaries. Rather, he discovers it is impossible to deny that death is inherent in life as meaninglessness in meaning.
Throughout the story, Gabriel is extremely self-absorbed and concerned with personal appearance. He is desperately trying to be important. Immediately after his introduction to the reader, he makes an inconsiderate comment to Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, someone he has known for years, and immediately, “Gabriel coloured [. . .] and, without looking at her, kicked off his goloshes” (23). He felt, “he had failed with the girl” (24). He is not necessarily concerned with his feelings, but more his own appearance. Looking good at all times is one way in which Gabriel can ensure his life has meaning. When contemplating the speech he is to give to the party guests at dinner, he decides not to quote the lines from Robert Browning for he feared they would be above the heads of his hearers [. . .] The indelicate clacking of the men’s heels and the shuffling of their soles reminded him that their grade of culture differed from his [. . .] They would think he was airing his superior education [. . .] He would fail. (24)
Gabriel not only feels that he is superior to Lily and the other guests, but he is afraid of failing in front of them. He sits below the floor on which the party is taking place, contemplating all this, absorbed in his own self-image. It is this fear, coupled with others that create the greatest fear within Gabriel: Fear of living a meaningless life in the present and fear of dying without having done anything meaningful.
Part of Gabriel’s quest for meaning comes in his value of popular European fashion and culture. He wears, and forces his wife to wear, galoshes, when no one seems to know what they are. Gretta, Gabriel’s wife, explains to aunts: “You’ll never guess what he makes me wear now! [. . .] Goloshes! [. . .] That’s the latest” (25). All the while, she is laughing. Gabriel seems to be embarrassed, either at his aunts’ reactions, or that they are not cultured enough to understand how fashionable galoshes are. In either case, the episode is a source of frustration for Gabriel as he, “laughed nervously and patted his tie reassuringly while Aunt Kate nearly doubled herself, so heartily did she enjoy the joke” (25). A short while later, Gabriel turns on Miss Ivors, admitting, “O, to tell you the truth [. . .] I’m sick of my own country, sick of it” (32). Yet, he can give no reason. He has refused Miss Ivors invitation to visit West Ireland because he wants to visit France and Belgium, “partly to keep in touch with the languages and partly for a change,” and when Miss Ivors queries, “haven’t you your own language to keep in touch with—Irish?” Gabriel replies, “Irish is not my language” (32). Gabriel attributes meaning to something that to Miss Ivors is meaningless. The reverse is also true because Gabriel sees reconnecting with his Irish heritage as completely meaningless. His idea of a meaningful life vis-à-vis culture is constantly undermined. It seems the characters surrounding Gabriel silently wish him to simply live and be happy with what he has around him. Yet, it is not until the end of the story that the opposition of meaning over meaninglessness is deconstructed.
In Gabriel’s insatiable thirst for significance, he believes in privileging life over death. He equates life with the present and the future, while death is part of the past. Throughout the night, Gabriel is surrounded by images of and conversation about death, though he does not realize it until his Joycean epiphany at the end. Both his mother and father are dead. His uncle, Pat, is dead. In his aunts’ home hang pictures of the dead: “the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet...and beside it was a picture of the two murdered princes in the Tower” (30). Aunt Julia reminisces about Parkinson, who was “A beautiful pure sweet mellow English tenor” (41). It is this talk of dead singers that prompts Gabriel to mention something about death in his speech. He speaks of the past and says:
Those days might, without exaggeration, be called spacious days: and if they are gone beyond recall let us hope, at least that in gatherings such as this we shall still speak of them with pride and affection, still cherish in our hearts the memory of those dead and gone great ones whose fame the world will not willingly let die. (43)
Gabriel’s assumption is that once someone dies, so does the memory of him or her. Only through fame can one’s memory live on because that fame, the important and significant achievements of that person deserve to live on in the hearts of humanity. Gabriel also uses the dead, as with his dead grandfather, as a source of humor. He tells the story about Patrick Morkan, stretching the details, without compassion in order to garner a laugh from those listening. In this case, death allows him to use someone as nothing more than a punchline. It is this separation of life from death, and Gabriel’s favoring of life over death that is deconstructed through his wife’s story about Michael Furey.
Gretta’s story about this childhood love brings Gabriel’s selfishness to the full attention of the reader. He mocks, “O then, you were in love with him? [. . .] Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl?” completely ignoring his wife’s feelings (56). During the story, Gabriel cannot comprehend why someone would have such strong emotion towards a person who is no longer a part of her life. Michael Furey is part of the past, and although Gabriel does not yet know that Michael Furey is dead or why he died, people of the past have no place in the present except as a way for Gabriel to bring more significance to his own life. When he does finally find out how Michael Furey died, he at first still tries to deny the connection that life and death share and write off Gretta’s experience as nothing important. “So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake,” Gabriel thinks to himself, and “It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life” (58). It is at this moment that Gabriel begins to deconstruct the logocentrism of his beliefs. He begins to think of all the people whom he knows now—who are alive—but who would someday succumb to death. He imagines Aunt Kate and himself mourning the death of Aunt Julia. Suddenly, “One by one they were all becoming shades,” and Gabriel realizes that everyone he knows, including himself will die. Simultaneously, things that seemed to have no meaning before—the West of Ireland, death, his wife’s own feelings—are now meaningful. Gabriel cannot escape them because of how he now sees his wife. He realizes that although he has had the utmost concern for his public appearance, his wife, who’s opinion of his public appearance and significance he should value most, is affected by someone whom, for all Gabriel knows, lead a meaningless existence. Based on these realizations, Gabriel lies in bed, watching the snow fall “upon all the living and the dead” (59). Thus, Gabriel’s epiphany deconstructs the logocentrism of Gabriel’s worldview regarding meaning.
The question of what Gabriel does with this epiphany is relevant. While it is enough to say his change was incredibly profound, Joyce leaves the question open to the reader. Either Gabriel learns from the deconstruction of these two core beliefs and attempts to change his life, or he succumbs to the pessimism that his realizations present. However, succumbing to that pessimism would not constitute complete deconstruction of the logocentricism of his beliefs because while he recognizes death as an inherent part of life, Gabriel would still value life over death. If his beliefs have been truly deconstructed, he will be able to move forward and rebuild his relationship with Gretta.
Works Cited
Culler, Jonathan. “Semiotics and Deconstruction.” Poetics Today 1.1/2 Special Issue: Literature, Interpretation, Communication (Autumn 1979): 137-141. JSTOR. 3 October 2007. Joyce, James. “The Dead.” The Dead: Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Ed. Daniel R. Schwarz. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s: 1994.
Melchert, Norman. The Great Conversation: Volume II: Decartes through Derrida and Quine. 4th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
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