Communication is the key to Connection: Post-Structuralist analysis of Anton Chekov’s The Man Who Lived in a Shell

Abstract

Communication enables people to express themselves and the hidden expressions are strong enough to communicate through the layers of meanings within the text. Similarly, these textual layers or hidden meanings gives insight of the text and enables the reader to understand the complexities from the narrator’s point of view. Post-structuralism basically clears those ideas and layers of meanings with the cultural, social, autobiographical etc. elements so that the reader can grasp the whole. As Derrida proposed to the poststructuralism theory that “Meaning lies within the text”. Hence, the Researcher has tried to analyse A Man Who Lived in A Shell by Anton Chekov. The strong elements of restrictiveness in the communication are strappingly present in the story which are brought to the surface by the application of this theory. The Researcher has reached the point that Belikov was a victim of perplexing thoughts and was unable to communicate himself to the fullest to the people he cared for.