Men-Wives and Performative Theory

I was writing a paper for Brit Lit last week on discourse in George Eliot's Silas Marner when I came across an interesting bit of theory gold in a scene that I'd almost forgotten. Discussing a peculiar wedding, one of the townspeople at Raveloe's local pub takes an issue with the minster's mis-utterance. Presiding over the ceremony, the minster makes a syntactical error and asks: "Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded wife?" (Eliot 40). This sends poor Mr. Macey into a tailspin, for the mis-utterance makes him wonder, "Is't the meanin' or the words as makes folks fast i' wedlock?" (Eliot 41).

This scene is interesting for a number of reasons and is notable, I think, for the attention Eliot pays in regards to performative utterances a century before the theory-system's procedures were codified (at least by J. L. Austin). Yet, we need Austin's work to get to the heart Mr. Macey's quandary. As Austin writes: "The various ways in which a performative utterance may be unsatisfactory we call, for the sake of a name, the infelicities; and an infelicity arises—that is to say, the utterance is unhappy—if certain rules, transparently simple rules, are broken (Austin 1292). 

In the case of the wedding ceremony (which Austin uses as a primary example in his discussion on performative theory), there is obviously a rule which has been broken (which would could call the man-wife, woman-husband conundrum). Yet, as Mr. Macey points out, nobody at the ceremony takes notice of the performative transgression (Eliot 40). This means what, exactly? Obviously, Austin would propose that meaning is intrinsically locked into the words of the performative utterance. Yet, at the same time, is the performative act achieved if there exists in it a mis-utterance that nobody (expect Mr. Macey) notices? 

Given the rules of performative theory (i.e. it must exist, be accepted, and be appropriate for its invocation), I believe Austin would state that the ceremony Mr. Macey observed was null. As the theorist writes: "If, for example, the purported act was an act of marrying, then we should say that we 'went through a form' of marriage, but we did not actually succeed in marrying" (Austin 1292). This is particularly troubling when we consider the fact that the minister reassures Mr. Macey by stating that the "regester" is what solidifies a marriage (Eliot 41). While he may very well be trying to cover for his mistake, the minister's assertion sends us into the age-old debate of writing versus spoken utterances.

Of course this last point is one that can be discussed at a different time. With this post, I merely wished to point out an interesting dialogue on performative utterance that occurs in a Victorian text. I am still interested, though, in the minister's claim. So what do you, reader, think? Is the marriage ceremony a mere "form" as Austin proposes? Or, does the act of registering the marriage through writing solidify the performance (despite its flaws)?

Reading the Patriot Act

I watched a segment of Last Week Tonight the other day after one of my housemates mentioned that John Oliver had interviewed Edward Snowden. While the interview was interesting enough to sustain the segment, there was an puzzling issue raised in the episode (around 10:55) that caught my attention. You can watch the episode in its entirety here or skip to the section I'm referencing in this blog post (whatever works for you).

A brief summary to lead up to the issue: in this episode Oliver presents a discussion on government surveillance, a difficult subject to navigate in a post-9/11 America. The most obvious tension that exists in this discussion lies in the gray area that exists between the individual's right to privacy and the government's right to protect the individual and the nation from terrorism. Of course, this is a very cursory analysis of the current conversation and, truthfully, Oliver does an awesome job of calling Americans out on their misunderstanding of the legislation that sustains government surveillance. Here is where we can cue the literary theory theme music.

At one point in the segment, Oliver shows a clip of Rep. James Sensenbrenner—one of the primary authors of the Patriot Act—testifying before a House Judiciary Committee. In response to some of the Patriot Act's more controversial sections, Sensenbrenner remarks that, "...no fair reading of the text would allow for this program." The program Sensenbrenner references is in regards to the NSA's systematic collection of "..any tangible things...for an investigation to protect against international terrorism..." (Section 215).

Herein lies the problem. According to Sensenbrenner, the government is currently misreading the text he's written, meaning that legal precedents are being established in contention to the author's interpretation of the text. How, then, are we supposed to read a legal text (especially something as controversial (and broad) as the Patriot Act)? Currently, there seems to be a New Critical approach to the reading and application of the Act. If it's written in the text, after all, isn't there a legality to any action that is deemed necessary? Or perhaps the NSA is more into deconstruction, recognizing that meaning is constantly differed. Maybe (and this is a weird thought to consider) they're lost in a Fishian approach to the Act—and are constructing meaning subjectively to fit their needs.

At any rate, there's something a tad bit terrifying about the lack of objectivity present in the reading and implementation of this Act. I mean, it's possible that I've been—up until now—blind to the obvious, that laws and bills are less divine than I thought. Yet, one would assume that the checks and balances of the government would act as a safety net before anything that infringed upon our rights was put in place. But their—that is, the courts' and the legislature's—reading depends on...what, exactly?

Thoughts?

war = childbirth?

One of my favorite movies is Away We Go, starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. In one particularly funny scene (see here), Verona and Burt are at the home of Burt’s childhood friend, “LN,” who is characterized by her radical views of parenting, childbirth and outspoken support of matriarchal values. Essentially, she is characterized as an obsessive feminist, self-righteous and distrustful of men. While the scene pokes fun at the extremes and misuses of feminist theory, it also brings up Beauvoir’s understanding of women as mysterious. Men cannot understand “the quality of woman’s erotic pleasure, the discomfort of menstruation, and the pains of childbirth” (1268), and women, in turn, can never fully understand man. It seems that Beauvoir wouldn’t be opposed to doulas, midwives, and the like, at least in the context of women having similar physical experiences unique to their sex.

LN’s character invites ridicule because of her decontextualized Beauvoir quotes and equating of childbirth to war. Her understanding of women as mysterious is pushed to unreasonable ends, to an arrogance that characterizes women as more important than men. There is a thin line between establishing women as mysterious, and establishing Women. On the one hand, it is kind of frustrating to see LN as the representation of feminism, because this characterization pervades popular culture and even classroom discussions I’ve been a part of. It is frustrating to see the feminist professor characterized in a narrow way. However, it is a movie, and nearly everyone is ridiculed. And, LN doesn’t necessarily invite empathy with her off-putting comments, especially paired with her upper class lifestyle and irritating penchant for candles literally everywhere. 

So, some questions. 

Is LN justified (in the context of the feminist theory we’ve read so far) in her dismissal of Burt?

Is LN an example of Beauvoir’s feminist existentialism decontextualized or hyperbolized? Or is she simply an example of a generalization of a feminist?

Characterizing Interpretation

This weekend at AWP (a giant literary conference), I looked through at least a hundred different literary journals. Some were produced on a large scale, some were meticulously hand bound and released in a small print run. One journal that stood out came from Forklift Ohio’s table. Each copy was covered in butcher paper, and secured with twine and tape. This doesn’t sound beautiful, but it really was. Inside, the cover was a close-up picture of meat (less beautiful), bright red and marbled. The head editor at Forklift explained the reasoning behind the aesthetic choice as a physical representation of the interaction that takes place between reader and book. He believed in a kind of inherent violence (hence the meat) constituting this relationship, where the act of reading (& interpreting) changes what was originally there.

I didn’t talk to him for very long, so I’m not sure what exactly he meant by what was “originally there” (perhaps the book as a text waiting to be experienced) but it reminded me of our reading of Austin, and more tangentially, of Barthes. Austin provides the example of a marriage ceremony as a performative utterance, where saying is actually doing. The resulting act is dynamic, physically altering the space in which it exists. The physical act of tearing off the butcher paper, opening the book, and then making critical interpretations of the content seems like an analogous action. The textual field is also dynamic, as Barthes describes, with active and associative play. 

Is this play imaginative, connotatively positive? Or is it inherently violent, as the head editor at Forklift described? Constituting interpretation as violence posits the work as some kind of unblemished, whole, and complete entity. On the other hand, characterizing interpretation as imaginative orients the reader as creating the text, establishing the work itself as less than useful without interpretation. 

Deconstruction

After covering deconstruction theorists like Derrida and de Man, the primary question I have is what the point of reading literature is for deconstructionists. If all language deconstructs itself, and there is no objective meaning within a text, then why read or write anything at all? This same question arose for me in Intro to Crit Strat with John Pell, and after reading the direct words of Derrida I still perceive deconstructionists to be just as cynical towards language as I did last semester. However, regardless of how cynical this critical lens might appear, I don't believe that any theorist (including deconstructionists) would create an entire theory just to say that language is pointless and doesn't do what we actually want it to accomplish.


Since post-structural theory claims that language deconstructs itself, it would seem as though language does nothing but defer meaning and create ambiguity. When I discussed this question with John back in the fall, the idea came up that post-structural theory is useful to us because it reveals the narratives of the human experience that we value most; we're able to dissect different texts in order to reveal what things are significant to specific authors, and we're exposed to the distinct interpretations of others, even though they don't necessarily reveal an objective meaning. I don't know if this is how Derrida would explain post-structural criticism, so my initial question remains because, other than ambiguity, what can deconstructionist thinkers derive from a text? If language in its nature deconstructs itself, and close readings of a text just defer us even further from meaning, what purpose does reading literature serve for them? It just seems like deconstructionists have dug themselves into a hole where they have little they can say about a text if they hold that the language of a text deconstructs itself...

Deconstruction Happens

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174659

I'm rereading Victorian stuff for our test in Brit lit next Friday and this poem reminded me of Paul de Man's essay where he analyses Yeats' "Among School Children" and "how can you tell the dancer from the dance?" and all that good stuff. In class this poem seemed to generate some different interpretations in it's treatment of Ulysses. Or at least I've heard Laura and Vic argue back and forth about it since I was a freshman.

It's hard for me though to find an argument in favor of Ulysses, just because he's not a very likable figure in this poem. He doesn't seem to have much respect for is wife, son, or the people he rules, though this is probably fairly characteristic of most dictator-kings. He even projects his own desires onto his former crew, just assuming they too yearn for the same adventurous days of their youths. Maybe they just want to settle down after, you know, fighting a war for the last thirty or whatever years of their lives. Ulysses wouldn't know and doesn't seem to care.

On the other hand he gives a pretty rousing speech at the end. I guess if you're into rousing speeches and sailing "beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars" until you die, Ulysses might be the one for you.

But anyway, just like in "Among School Children" the poem seems to yield two completely contradictory readings that can both be supported by the poem. Does it condemn or denounce Ulysses? I don't know. Deconstruction happens, I guess. Even for the silly Victorians. What do you think about Ulysses? Would you invite him over for afternoon tea?

Theory Madness!

In the spirit of March Madness I decided to fill out a bracket for my diagram. The competition: who would most likely get hired to fill the new Lit Theory position for the Whitworth English department? Or, if you prefer, who would be Whitworth's "Theorist in Residence?" Either way I obviously tried to base the competition off theory alone and not on some of the qualifications of being a professor at Whitworth, such as being a Christian, since that would rule out all but about three of the theorists.

I apologize for any confusion or difficulty reading the bracket. For the sake of conserving space Wimsatt/Beardsley became Wimsley, though I could have gone with Beardsatt. Horkheimer/Adorno became Adornheimer.

To make the bracket I went to a website online where you just put all the information in and it randomly generates a bracket. I felt like the randomness would be easier than trying to figure out who has had more "influence," which while easy for the top and bottom seeds would've been difficult for the middle seeds. The randomness led to a funny quirk in the bracket, where de Pizan is the 1 seed and Plato is the 22 seed, about the opposite that would've happened if I'd tried doing only influence.

In deciding who would win a matchup I inconsistently applied who's theory I thought was "better" or "more sophisticated." I also generally tried to take into account whether or not they focused on literature, philosophy, or society. For example, Wollstonecraft lost to de Pizan because de Pizan seemed to focus more on literature than Wollstonecraft. Similarly Hume beat Nietzsche because in our readings Nietzsche was more of a philosopher than a literary critic, even if those roles might be reversed in their larger bodies of work. Kant lost to de Pizan because he's just the most boring person in history and de Pizan is amazing.

Horkheimer and Adorno ended up beating de Pizan because I thought it was too hard to beat the culture industry.

But there it is. If you think I got a matchup totally wrong let me know!