Each reading would be an attempt to simplify the interplay of meanings within the text. Rather, a thoughtful deconstructive reading tries to show the ways that literary writing, which is self-conscious about words and meaning, might have much to tell us about our fragmented reality, which is always already in language itself.
Signs only mean by difference.
You have heard this before from deSausssure. Derrida re-emphasizes the point that meaning isn't in the signifier itself, but that it only exists in a network, in relation to other things. He claims that it is merely a comforting illusion to think that speech and writing are separate, and that writing is a fallen version of speech. He will proceed to argue that speech as the prototype and more perfect version of writing tries to deny the radical insight of deSaussure. Although we don't get a terribly good definition of the trace in this section, it is important to Derrida's thought and will be important in Lacan as well.