Shepard's and Pirandello's Selected Works as Indeterminate Texts: A poststructuralist Study (PDF)

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2011 in the subject Philosophy - Theoretical (Realisation, Science, Logic, Language), grade: none, , language: English, abstract: After the World Wars, a sense of skepticism and indeterminacy towards the objective reality and truth, thought to be attained by the heritage of modernity, became an obsession for the thinkers and philosophers questioning the nature of truth. The present study is an attempt to trace the notion of indeterminacy in the plays of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author and It Is So! and Sam Shepard's True West and Buried Child from the point of view of poststructuralist philosophers, namely Derrida, Paul de Man, Nietzsche and theories of modern Physics (Einstein's relativity and quantum physics). To achieve this purpose, a thorough investigation of the plays through the lens of indeterminacy has been conducted. The first focus is Derrida's two notions, Differance and binary oppositions. Differance reflects on the deferment of meaning; and his idea of binary oppositions concentrates on the fact that of the two sides of oppositions neither side has privilege over the other side since a part of meaning exists in the opposite one and they get their meaning from each other. Furthermore, de Man's rhetoric, pointing to the figurative nature of language, which causes the meaning to delay; Nietzsche's view of truth, having a mobile stance; and the theories of modern physics, with regard to Einstein's relativity and indeterminacy extant in quantum mechanics, have been approached. Through the application of these ideas, it is proved that neither Pirandello's nor Shepard's have fixed meanings; rather, they always grant floating meanings that never reach a definite signified. Characters of the plays have an indeterminate natures changing from one type of personality to another one. Moreover, it is seen that how the concept of relativity is working through the play causing different characters to have the same view of the same event regarding reality and truth.