Reading response 2: "Deconstruction and post-structuralism"

In a paragraph about deconstructionism from “Deconstruction and post-structuralism”, there was a mention of how meaning is always changing and that “this is what Sassure had argued by saying that signs are arbitrary, and that they only signify something because a cultural system has artificially constructed or assigned a meaning to them; there is no self-present, intrinsic value” (GT 74).

This got me thinking about how some colors have culturally different meanings. For example, in a lot of Western culture, women usually wear a full length white dress on their wedding day. In some cultures in Asia, for example, followers of Hinduism wear full length white garb when they go to a funeral/when they are in mourning.  Of course, the particulars would be different (a wedding dress is going to look a lot different than mourning clothes of a completely different culture), but the general symbol of what a woman in a white dress means is defined by the particular culture. So if the ‘signified’ is a lady in white, the Western parts of the world, the ‘sign’ would be a bride. However, if the same ‘signified’ was to be seen through the perspective of a Hindu, the ‘sign’ would indicate she’s probably a widow. The same thing can mean two completely different things based on culture and perspective, and is an example of how meaning is always changing.

It’s interesting to observe that what’s true in literature/fairy tales and literary theory can very well be applied to real life scenarios.