Poststructuralism, Poems, and Deconstructive Reading

How to Deconstruct a Text : Deconstructive Reading of Three Poems by Shakespeare, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams

This blog is part of an activity called How to Deconstruct a Text, where three poems by Shakespeare, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams will be closely examined. Deconstruction, a method created by Jacques Derrida, helps us look at texts by showing how their meanings can shift and how different people might understand them in different ways.

Poem : 1 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I have watched the short video "How to Deconstruct a Text: Sonnet 18 "Shall I Compare Thee." The video helped me understand how deconstruction can be applied practically to literature. It showed how Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, which seems to praise the beloved’s beauty and immortality through poetry, can also be read in other ways. For example, it questions the stability of language, the power of poetry to preserve beauty, and even the idea of an unchanging truth about love or time.

By focusing on contradictions, shifting meanings, and the role of the reader, the video showed how deconstruction reveals that meaning is not fixed—even in such a well-known and celebrated poem.

Poem : 2  "In a Station of the Metro" 

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough."

Ezra Pound’s poem “In a Station of the Metro” may seem short and simple, but it becomes much more complex when we read it through the lens of deconstruction. The poem compares the sight of people’s faces in a subway station to petals on a wet, black tree branch. At first, this may feel like a direct and beautiful comparison. But when we look deeper, we realize that the poem isn’t really showing us the real faces or real petals—it’s using words (signifiers) to create an image in our minds. These signifiers (like “apparition” and “petals”) don’t just describe things, they produce emotions and associations. The word “apparition,” for example, makes the faces seem ghostly or dream-like, not real or solid.

What matters most in the poem is not the meaning of each word on its own, but how the words sound and feel together. The rhythm, the soft rhyme between “crowd” and “bough,” and the space on the page all help create a mood that feels delicate and haunting. As Julia Kristeva explains through her idea of the “semiotic,” poetry often works with rhythm and sound to express feelings that go beyond logic or clear meaning. This poem does not give us a clear message—it lets different meanings float and change. Through this, Pound shows us how poetry uses language not to name real things, but to open a space where emotions, images, and sensations move freely. Deconstruction helps us see that the poem’s beauty lies in this instability and openness, not in any one fixed interpretation. 

Poem : 3 "The Red Wheelbarrow"

"so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens."

At first glance, “The Red Wheelbarrow” seems like a very simple and clear poem. It describes a red wheelbarrow, wet with rain, next to some white chickens. But when we apply the method of deconstruction, we start to see that its meaning is not as fixed or stable as it appears. The first line—"so much depends upon"—immediately introduces a sense of importance, but the poem never tells us what depends on the wheelbarrow or why. This opens the poem up to many different interpretations. The meaning is deliberately left incomplete, forcing the reader to fill in the blanks with their own thoughts, which is a key idea in deconstruction.

The image of the red wheelbarrow may seem ordinary, but the poem makes it seem essential. Why a red wheelbarrow? Is the color just a detail, or does it symbolize something—like life, work, or even danger? The poem doesn’t say. Similarly, the phrase "glazed with rain water" is visually rich but also ambiguous. Is the glaze just a physical detail, or does it make the wheelbarrow appear more artistic or special? Deconstruction helps us notice how the line between literal and symbolic meaning becomes blurred. We begin to question whether we're looking at a real object or a poetic construction.

The presence of "white chickens" adds another layer of meaning. They may simply be part of the farm setting, or they might stand in contrast to the red wheelbarrow—white and red, life and labor. But again, the relationship between the wheelbarrow and the chickens is never explained. This uncertainty is central to deconstructive analysis: texts often contain contradictions, tensions, and gaps that prevent a single, stable meaning. Even the structure of the poem—with its broken-up lines and lack of punctuation—adds to this sense of fragmentation and openness.

In conclusion, although “The Red Wheelbarrow” is short and seems clear, it is actually a powerful example of how language can both reveal and hide meaning. Deconstruction shows us that every word, image, and structure in a text can be questioned. Meaning does not come from the poem alone—it comes from the interaction between the text and the reader. This poem reminds us that even the most ordinary things—like a wheelbarrow—can carry multiple meanings, and that no interpretation is ever final.

Poem : 4 A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London

Never until the mankind making

Bird beast and flower

Fathering and all humbling darkness

Tells with silence the last light breaking

And the still hour

Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

     

And I must enter again the round

Zion of the water bead

And the synagogue of the ear of corn

Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound

Or sow my salt seed

In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

     

The majesty and burning of the child's death.

I shall not murder

The mankind of her going with a grave truth

Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath

With any further

Elegy of innocence and youth.

     

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,

Robed in the long friends,

The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,

Secret by the unmourning water

Of the riding Thames.

After the first death, there is no other.

  

References : 

 “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London by Dylan Thomas.” Famous Poems, Famous Poets. - All Poetry, allpoetry.com/A-Refusal-To-Mourn-The-Death,-By-Fire,-Of-A-Child-In-London.

Barad, Dilip. “Deconstructive Analysis of Ezra Pound's 'In a Station of the Metro' and William Carlos Williams's 'The Red Wheelbarrow.'” Research Gate, 03 July 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381943844_Deconstructive_Analysis_of_Ezra_Pound's_'In_a_Station_of_the_Metro'_and_William_Carlos_Williams's_'The_Red_Wheelbarrow'. Accessed 03 July 2025.

Belsey, C. (2002). Poststructuralism (First Indian Edition 2006 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

“In a Station of the Metro.” The Poetry Foundation, 29 Oct. 2024, www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12675/in-a-station-of-the-metro.

“The Red Wheelbarrow.” The Poetry Foundation, 22 June 2024, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45502/the-red-wheelbarrow.