Monstrous Promises
Performative Acts and Corporeality in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13007956 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicola Moffat (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 232-247 |
| Publication date | 2018-09-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Somatechnics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2044-0138 • E-ISSN: 2044-0146 |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3366/soma.2018.0253 |
| OpenAlex | W2892260869 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 6 |
Promises are an example of what linguist JL Austin described as performative acts, in that their very utterance allows the act of promising to take place. Austin formed his theory of performative speech acts as a way in which to make fully predictable the effects of certain speech acts, promises amongst them. Using Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, this article demonstrates the impossibility of predicting the effects of promises, explaining that Austin and Frankenstein both lack a consideration of the bearing different bodies have on the effects of promises. Taking a feminist deconstructive approach, this article examines the technics of speech and the gaze, the accumulation of knowledge, the status and reproductive abilities of women, and how these relate to monsters and monstrosity in both the novel and Austin's seminal work, How to Do Things With Words
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Epistemology · Gaze · Impossibility · Linguistics · Literature · Performative utterance · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Utterance · Comics and Graphic Narratives · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought
| Highly cited | No |
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