By Eric Anders, with and against ChatGPT
Act III: Pharmakon and Fever
Act III, Scene 1: Deconstruction of the Archive
Setting: The stage is an ethereal, hybrid space—a lecture hall merged with an endless archive. Shelves of glowing documents stretch infinitely upward, pulsating as if alive. A lectern stands center stage, surrounded by semi-transparent screens displaying fragments from Acts I and II: Jefferson at Monticello, Sally Hemings in the shadows, Freud’s analysis, and the abstract interplay of the unconscious. The atmosphere is dense with tension, yet electric with possibility.
Sound Cue: A low, rumbling hum gives way to the faint scratching of a quill, the soft clicking of typewriter keys, and the metallic buzz of an old hard drive spinning. The sounds blend into a distorted orchestral swell.
Lights up. JACQUES DERRIDA stands at the lectern, his presence commanding yet inquisitive. He begins, addressing the audience directly.
JACQUES DERRIDA (Smiling faintly, adjusting his glasses, his French accent lending rhythm to his words.) Bonsoir. Welcome. You have seen two acts, and yet, you have seen little. You have entered what I would call a white mythology, a stage where Western thought repeats itself under the guise of progress and universality. I am Jacques Derrida, and tonight, I stand before you not as a ghost but as an interruption—a supplement, a pharmakon, both remedy and poison, both guide and disruption.
(He gestures to the glowing screens around him, where images of Jefferson, Sally, Freud, and others flicker.)
In 1972, I wrote of these myths in White Mythologies. Do you remember the scene in Act I where Jefferson spoke of liberty while silence surrounded Sally? Do you remember in Act II when Freud sought to interpret but spoke over Sally’s voice? These are not accidents—they are structures. White mythology is not merely the history of whiteness, though it includes that. It is the erasure of difference, the rewriting of all narratives into a single master story that denies its own origin. It is the discourse of the master—the one that speaks but cannot hear.
(He pauses, letting the silence stretch.)
This stage, like the archive, is a theater of silences. You have witnessed the discourse of the master (Jefferson), of the hysteric (Sally), of the analyst (Freud), and, most crucially for this play, of the university (Professor Uni Verse). Each of these discourses is alive here, but they do not coexist peacefully. They clash, suppress, and sometimes… speak over one another. This is the tension you must grapple with.
(He steps away from the lectern, moving toward the audience.)
Tonight, I will introduce a new concept: intergenerational pathogens. These are not diseases of the body but infections of memory, of history. They are the traumas passed silently from one generation to the next, encoded not in genes but in stories—or their absences. Sally Hemings embodies this silence. Jefferson’s mastery, Freud’s analysis, even the university’s curation—they have all failed to reckon with what Ferenczi called the confusion of tongues.
(The screens display an image of Ferenczi, alongside phrases like “childhood trauma” and “confusion of tongues.”)
Ferenczi saw how authority distorts truth, how the adult imposes their discourse onto the child, silencing their pain. Is this not what the master discourse does? It imposes its mythologies, its laws, its archives onto those it subjugates. Sally’s voice, her pain, her resistance—these are the hysteric’s truths, violently repressed but always returning.
(He returns to the lectern, his tone growing sharper.)
Deconstruction does not heal; it disrupts. It is the pharmakon. It unravels the master’s text but leaves fragments behind, exposing the violence within. Tonight, we will deconstruct the archive—not to destroy it, but to make space for what it has silenced.
(He gestures to the figures of Jefferson, Sally, Freud, and Professor Uni Verse, now illuminated in their respective spaces on stage. Each rises and takes their place at the edge of the archive, embodying their discourse.)
I represent the discourse of deconstruction, but I cannot speak for the others. They will speak for themselves. Listen closely, for their voices are not equal in power. That inequality is the very structure we must confront.
The stage transitions into a formal symposium. Each figure steps forward to present their perspective, their discourse shaped by the themes of Acts I and II. DERRIDA returns to the lectern, introducing each speaker in turn.
JACQUES DERRIDA (Introducing Jefferson.) First, we hear from Thomas Jefferson. He speaks for the discourse of the master. Listen closely—not for what he says, but for what his words obscure.
THOMAS JEFFERSON (Calm, authoritative, his tone reflecting both conviction and self-awareness.) I speak as the master, not by choice, but by necessity. My words crafted a republic, a structure of liberty and law. Yet, as you saw in Act I, liberty was never universal. It was bounded, constrained—its truths shadowed by contradiction.
Sally’s voice—her pain—haunts this archive because my discourse could not contain it. The master speaks to command, not to listen. And yet, here I am. Forced to reckon with what my mastery has wrought.
(He pauses, his gaze steady but heavy.)
To deconstruct the master is to confront its legacy. But tell me—what replaces it? If mastery is undone, does chaos follow? Or is there another way?
JEFFERSON steps back, and SALLY HEMINGS rises. Her voice is clear, resolute, carrying the weight of silenced generations.
SALLY HEMINGS (Her tone sharp, unflinching.) I am the hysteric because that is what the master made me. My voice is a disruption, a question, a refusal to accept the master’s truth. You saw in Act I how I was silenced. In Act II, Freud sought to interpret me, but even he spoke over my voice.
The hysteric is necessary because the master’s truth must be questioned. But it is also a trap. To be the hysteric is to be defined by resistance—to exist only in opposition to power. Is that freedom?
(She looks directly at Jefferson.)
Your liberty was my silence. Your mastery was my erasure. And yet, I am here. The hysteric always returns.
SALLY steps back. FREUD rises, his posture reflective, his tone thoughtful.
SIGMUND FREUD (Addressing the audience directly.) The Analyst’s discourse listens—at least, it tries to. But as you saw in Act II, listening is not enough. Ferenczi’s confusion of tongues reminds us that authority distorts, that the analyst’s power can silence even as it interprets.
The unconscious is a truth the master denies. Yet the analyst risks imposing another kind of mastery. To interpret Sally’s voice is to risk silencing her again. The Analyst must tread carefully—always questioning its own authority.
PROFESSOR UNI VERSE steps forward, her tone poised yet critical.
PROFESSOR UNI VERSE (Her voice firm, academic.) The University curates knowledge. It shapes the archive, deciding what is preserved and what is forgotten. As you saw in Act II, the university’s allegiance to the master is its greatest failing. It denies the unconscious, marginalizing both psychoanalysis and deconstruction.
And yet, the university holds potential. It can become a space for the return of the repressed—for voices like Sally’s to be heard. But this requires a radical rethinking of its mission. Education must not serve the master; it must subvert it.
DERRIDA steps forward, concluding the scene.
JACQUES DERRIDA (His tone urgent, incisive.) This play, this archive, this lecture—it is a staging of the return of the repressed. It is an attempt to deconstruct mastery, to rewrite the archive. But it is not enough. The question remains: What will you do?
(The lights dim. The figures remain visible, their gazes fixed on the audience. The screens pulse with the phrase: “Whose silence will you break?”)
End Scene.
Act III, Scene 2: Pharmakon and Fever
Setting: The archive space has further transformed. The rows of shelves have collapsed into fragmented clusters, creating jagged, labyrinthine pathways. A central, elevated circular platform serves as a stage for the speakers. Around the platform are fragments of history: broken statues, torn manuscripts, and holographic projections of key moments from Acts I and II. The atmosphere is fevered—an electrified hum fills the air, punctuated by moments of dissonant silence.
Sound Cue: The hum of the archive grows louder, interspersed with overlapping voices: fragments of Sally’s monologue, Jefferson’s declarations, Freud’s analyses, and Derrida’s deconstructions. The cacophony rises, then fades into a tense quiet.
Lighting: Spotlights focus on the central platform, leaving the surrounding space dim and shadowy. As each character speaks, the light shifts to emphasize their presence.
[Lights up on the central platform. The figures of JACQUES DERRIDA, THOMAS JEFFERSON, SALLY HEMINGS, SIGMUND FREUD, and PROFESSOR UNI VERSE are seated in a semicircle, each representing their discourse. DERRIDA stands, addressing the audience directly.]
JACQUES DERRIDA(Stepping forward, his tone measured yet urgent.)Welcome back, mes amis. If Scene 1 was the deconstruction of the archive’s surface, then Scene 2 is its fever dream—a confrontation with its contradictions, its pathogens, its silences.
You have met the four discourses: the Master, the Hysteric, the Analyst, and the University. Each speaks its truth, yet none can claim the full truth. Tonight, we examine their interplay—their collisions, their complicities, their potential for transformation.
(He gestures to the others seated around him.)
Here sit the architects of our fevered archive. Thomas Jefferson, the Master, whose discourse commands but cannot listen. Sally Hemings, the Hysteric, whose resistance disrupts but risks entrapment. Sigmund Freud, the Analyst, who interprets but cannot escape his own authority. And Professor Uni Verse, the University, custodian of knowledge but also complicit in silencing the unconscious.
(The spotlight shifts to JEFFERSON.)
DERRIDA(Introducing Jefferson.)The Master speaks first. He embodies the archive’s power—its ability to define, to preserve, to control. But mastery comes at a cost: it silences, it represses, it forgets.
THOMAS JEFFERSON(Rising, his tone authoritative yet reflective.)I am Thomas Jefferson. Statesman, architect, author of liberty—and yet, a master who silenced as much as he spoke.
The archive preserves my words, my vision. It enshrines the ideals of liberty and equality, even as it buries the contradictions they contain. As you saw in Act I, my mastery was built on exclusions—Sally’s silence, the labor of the enslaved, the erasure of those who did not fit the narrative of the republic.
(He pauses, scanning the audience.)
I do not deny these contradictions. But mastery, by its nature, is imperfect. It is a framework—a scaffold upon which nations are built. If you dismantle it, what replaces it?
(He sits. The spotlight shifts to SALLY HEMINGS.)
DERRIDA(Introducing Sally Hemings.)The Hysteric speaks next. She embodies the return of the repressed—the voice the Master silenced but could never fully erase.
SALLY HEMINGS(Standing, her voice sharp and unyielding.)I am Sally Hemings. Slave, mother, witness to the hypocrisy of liberty.
The archive erased my story, yet it could not destroy it. My voice returns—not as a whisper, but as a demand. The hysteric resists, questions, disrupts. As you saw in Act II, my presence is a challenge to the Master’s truth.
But resistance alone is not enough. To be the Hysteric is to live in opposition—to define oneself through the very power one seeks to dismantle. How do I move beyond resistance? How do I reclaim agency in a system designed to silence me?
(She sits. The spotlight shifts to FREUD.)
DERRIDA(Introducing Freud.)The Analyst listens—not to command, but to understand. Yet even the Analyst risks becoming another Master, imposing meaning where none exists.
SIGMUND FREUD(Rising, his tone reflective and precise.)I am Sigmund Freud, a physician of the mind. I listen for what the unconscious reveals—the truth hidden beneath silence.
But listening is fraught with danger. As Ferenczi taught us, the confusion of tongues distorts communication. The child speaks the language of need, but the adult responds with the language of authority. The same distortion occurs in analysis: the Analyst listens, but interpretation risks imposing new silences.
(He pauses, his gaze shifting to Sally.)
Sally’s voice is not mine to interpret, yet I cannot ignore it. The Analyst must tread carefully, always aware of their own authority.
(He sits. The spotlight shifts to PROFESSOR UNI VERSE.)
DERRIDA(Introducing Professor Uni Verse.)The University speaks last. It is the custodian of the archive, the arbiter of knowledge. It holds the power to amplify voices—or to silence them.
PROFESSOR UNI VERSE(Standing, her tone poised yet critical.)I am Professor Uni Verse. Scholar, educator, gatekeeper of knowledge.
The university shapes the archive. It decides whose stories are preserved, whose voices are amplified. For centuries, it upheld the Master’s narrative, marginalizing psychoanalysis and deconstruction, denying the truth of the unconscious.
But the university is also a site of potential. It can become a space for the Analyst’s discourse, a space where silences are confronted and repressed voices are heard. This play—this staging—is one such attempt.
(She sits. The spotlight returns to DERRIDA.)
DERRIDA(Concluding, his tone urgent.)And so, mes amis, we return to the archive—this fevered, fragmented space of memory and forgetting. You have heard the voices of mastery, resistance, analysis, and education. The question is not which discourse will prevail, but whether they can coexist.
The archive is a pharmakon: remedy and poison, tomb and womb. It preserves, but it also silences. Tonight, we have staged its fever—its contradictions, its possibilities. The cure lies not in erasing the archive, but in rewriting it.
(He steps forward, addressing the audience directly.)
And you, the audience—you are the authors of silence. The archive is not fixed; it is alive, shaped by your actions, your choices. Will you listen to the voices it has silenced? Will you rewrite its story?
(The lights dim. The figures remain seated, their gazes fixed on the audience. The sound of turning pages fills the air, fading into silence.)
End Scene.
Act III, Scene 3: Who's Afraid of the Truth?
Act III, Scene 3: Who's Afraid of the Truth?
Setting: The stage remains unchanged from Scene 2, a liminal space where the interplay of discourses unfolds. The characters are still present: Derrida as the discourse of philosophy, Freud as the unconscious, Prof Uni Verse as the university, Sally as the hysteric, and Thomas as the master. A palpable tension lingers from the prior scene.
Derrida moves center stage, his presence commanding yet subtle, as if emerging from the shadows of discourse itself. He looks out at the others, hands loosely clasped.
DERRIDA: Who’s afraid of philosophy? (pauses, scanning the others) No, let us be more honest. Who’s afraid of the unconscious? Who’s afraid of the truth—the truth of what is really going on?
PROF UNI VERSE: (adjusting their robes, defensive) The university is not afraid of truth. Truth is our foundation, the bedrock of all inquiry. What we fear, Derrida, is losing structure… losing coherence in the name of endless questioning.
DERRIDA: (smiling faintly) Structure is a comforting fiction, my dear Professor. And coherence? It is the illusion you sell as a commodity to students who are too afraid to confront the very questions you avoid. Philosophy, like the unconscious, disrupts coherence. It refuses to be contained. (turns to Freud) And yet… it is inescapable. Is it not, Sigmund?
FREUD: (leaning back, contemplative) Indeed, it is inescapable. The unconscious speaks in dreams, in slips, in the very silences that punctuate our words. It demands to be heard, and yet it terrifies because it reveals the lie of mastery. (looks pointedly at Thomas) The lie that we are in control.
THOMAS: (visibly restraining himself, then speaking with quiet determination) It’s not just control. It’s responsibility. Silencing, Derrida, is not just a refusal to care; sometimes it is a weapon to protect those who need care the most. Real care is not the absence of authority, but the thoughtful use of it. Without authority—without a ground beneath us—what do we give to those who need stability? Chaos is not care. Uncertainty is not comfort. I once thought of myself as the author of liberty, Derrida. Yet like the discourse of the master, I was the author of many silences. To care truly… to care responsibly… is to confront the silences we create in the name of stability, to ask whether those silences protect or oppress. It’s a difficult line to walk.
DERRIDA: (nodding, thoughtfully) And yet, Thomas, what of the ground you stand on? Does it not shift beneath your feet? The identities we invoke—white, black, female, native, homosexual—are not solid foundations. They, too, are myths, woven through histories of violence and power. To care truly, perhaps we must begin by dismantling even those categories. But how do we do so… without leaving those identities, and the struggles they represent, defenseless?
THOMAS: (firmly, but not unkindly) This is the challenge. You call them myths, but they are also homes. To strip away identity without rebuilding something in its place… that’s destruction, not deconstruction. (pauses) Haraway criticized deconstruction as "acid tools." How do we fight back, Derrida, if the ground beneath our feet is always dissolving? How does the hysteric find her voice, the oppressed claim their rights, if their identities are always in flux?
SALLY: (interrupting, her voice sharp and clear) Maybe the point isn’t to fight back with the same weapons. Maybe it’s to learn to live in the flux. To make new homes in the shifting ground. (gestures to Derrida) Isn’t that what you’re saying? Care isn’t about fixing things, or locking them in place. It’s about showing up. About listening. Even when it’s messy.
FREUD: (nodding, his tone measured) Care begins with acknowledgment. To listen to the unconscious, to the intergenerational wounds we carry… it is not neat. It does not offer resolution. But it opens a space where the silenced can speak, where the trauma of the past can begin to be transformed. And yet, Thomas is not wrong. There must be responsibility. Care without responsibility risks becoming indulgence. Responsibility without care becomes tyranny.
DERRIDA: (turning to Thomas, his voice soft) Perhaps, then, the ground we seek is not beneath our feet, but between us. In the space of relation, of dialogue, of mutual acknowledgment. The hermeneutics of suspicion does not dissolve; it reveals. It asks us to look at what we take for granted, not to destroy it, but to understand it… and to care for it differently.
PROF UNI VERSE: (softly, almost reluctantly) And the university? Where does it fit in this ethic of care? If we embrace philosophy… the unconscious… the truth… how do we preserve the institution?
DERRIDA: (turning to them, his tone gentle) The university must also care for the wounds it has inflicted. For the authors of silence it has erased. Its purpose is not to preserve itself, but to create spaces where the silenced may speak, where the unseen may be seen. It must become a home… without condition.
THOMAS: (visibly struggling, his voice quieter) Then authority must serve care, not itself. To lead is not to impose, but to invite. To create conditions where others may find their own voice. And perhaps… to protect the vulnerable while they learn to speak. But this… this requires more than questioning. It requires patience. It requires time. It requires love.
DERRIDA: (smiling faintly) Love, yes. But love not as mastery. Love as care. For the self. For the other. For the Other. This… this is the right to philosophy. The right to question, to think, to care… without condition.
The stage begins to dim, leaving Derrida and Sally standing together in the liminal space. Prof Uni Verse, Freud, and Thomas fade into the shadows, their figures still visible but muted. The focus tightens on Derrida and Sally, their forms silhouetted against the light.
DERRIDA: (to the audience, his voice resonant) Who’s afraid of philosophy? Perhaps… only those who fear the truth of the unconscious. But to them, I say: Fear is not the enemy; it is the beginning. The silence holds no promise unless we act within it. Care is not inevitable. It must be fought for—created through engaged resistance to the forces that thrive on silencing: authoritarianism, greed, willful ignorance, cultish politics. Care demands responsibility, courage, and a refusal to turn away. It is not born of silence alone but of our shared refusal to accept the status quo. Only then can silence transform… from a void into a space where voices emerge, and truths take root.
Blackout.
End of Play.
Comments