The purpose of this study is to investigate a deconstructive aspect, the absence of center, in Joyce`s works, centering on the main character Stephen Dedalus. Jacques Derrida, the French philosopher, converts the structuralist meaning, that is, the presence of center, into the absence of center, dealing with structuralism based upon linguistics. Saussure, a linguist, maintained that a sign formulates its meaning, not simply by the symbolic representation between a thing and its name, but by the relations and the differences between signs. Like Saussure, structuralists presuppose and believe in the presence of center, origin, and the fixed meaning of the sign which is being spoken or written about. But, according to Derrida, `the center could not be thought in the form of a present-being,` because of the diffe´rance in language. This is one of the methods of deconstructive criticism employed by Derrida. This methodology can be applied to Joyce`s character Stephen. Stephen, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses, searches for the presence of center, followed by the absence of center. He thinks that he has found the center in the rector`s room, a prostitute`s breast, religion, art, "Old father," and his spiritual father Bloom. But, in the end, he realizes the temporal nature of the present center and takes his departure into his new world. This study shows that Joyce, like Derrida, calls into question and subverts the concept of center in structuralism. This is Joyce`s deconstructive concept which `disrupts the presence of center and extends the domain and the play of signification infinitely.`