This book is a study of the much debated problem of Soren Kierkegaard's ""indirect communication."" It approaches the problem, however, in quite a new way by applying some of the insights of recent literary theory. This study is both a contribution to literary theory, in the sense that it seeks to apply it, and a suggestion for renewal within phenomenological philosophy. A deconstructive approach to the written work is followed by a phenomenological description of the development of the lived sign. The book is an attempt to investigate a theme concerning individual rights and embodiment that descends from Kant through Edmund Husserl to Maurice Merleau-Ponty.