Deconstruction Analysis: The Ideas of Keeping Tradition in 'No Witchcraft for Sale' by Doris Lessing

摘要

A short story of Doris Lessing's "No Witchcraft for Sale"tells about a native African named Gideon working for a missionary family the Farquars. This shows how the relationship between the master and the servant go on and also how the natives are treated. The story is related to the post colonial reading which not only gives the proofs of oppression towards the natives as usual, but it also tries to find new meanings. By using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) method with deconstruction theory by Derrida, this writing aims to dismantle the hidden meaning portrayed in the idea of keeping tradition that becomes the center of the text. The writer also includes transitivity analysis taken from Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) (2004) to find the linguistic evidences in which they are used to produce the binary oppositions that exist in the text. These polarities actually contains meanings which already set up or fixed at the first reading where, in this story, native is usually described as the oppressed since he insists on preserving cultural heritage, and the Masters are the oppressor since they want to take the traditional culture. In deconstruction, the meaning polarities are inverted so that it regenerates new ideas over the text called as dissemination. Keeping tradition which is considered to bring goodness is no longer seen as it is, but tradition is construed as being egocentric and support particularism. It is close minded and difficult to receive updates or renewals.