Post-structuralism is a movement that criticizes structuralism and emphasizes the instability of meaning. Structuralists believed that language has a stable underlying structure. Post-structuralists disagreed. They argued that meaning is never fixed. It shifts with context. It depends on the reader. It is always deferred. There is no final meaning.

The movement emerged in France in the 1960s and 1970s. Key figures include Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Julia Kristeva. They challenged the idea of a stable self, a stable truth, and a stable text. They argued that power shapes knowledge. They argued that binary oppositions are unstable. They argued that the author is not the authority on meaning.

Post-structuralist themes

• Meaning is unstable and deferred.
• Power shapes knowledge and discourse.
• The self is fragmented, not unified.
• Binary oppositions are hierarchical and unstable.
• The author is dead; the reader creates meaning.

Post-structuralism influenced literary criticism, philosophy, history, and cultural studies. It is controversial. Critics say it denies truth and objectivity. They say it is relativistic. They say it is obscure. Defenders say it is liberating. It opens texts to multiple readings. It challenges authority. It gives voice to the marginalized. It reveals hidden assumptions. Post-structuralism is not a single theory. It is a family of approaches. It shares a suspicion of grand narratives and fixed meanings. It is difficult to define. That is fitting. A movement that denies fixed meaning resists a fixed definition. It is a way of reading, not a doctrine. It asks: what is excluded? What is suppressed? What is assumed? Those questions are still worth asking.