16 minute read
terances” by Ryan Carroll
and Austinian Performative Utterances
Ryan Carroll, The George Washington University
Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Prioress’ Tale, one of the most intriguing and ambivalent entries in The Canter-
bury Tales, is a rich work that offers insight into the simultaneous power and conflict inherent to speech. In this
paper, I will endeavor to study this speech conflict through the lens of J.L. Austin’s “Performative Utterances”
and Edward Said’s Orientalism, studying the way in which language manifests as a potent force in the poem,
with utterances themselves altering both material and psychic conditions. Using Austin’s Speech Act Theory
and Said’s theory of Orientalism in a pragmatic linguistic analysis of the text, the entirety of The Prioress’ Tale1
can be viewed as a series of speech acts, all of which produce powerful forces of utterance that, through rheto-
ric, enact ideologies into reality.
Considered this way, we may find that both the text and metatext of The Prioress’ Tale are comprised of
a number of speech acts, which, beyond making simple descriptive proclamations, perform rhetorical positions
into concrete realities—even, at times, doing so unintentionally. Within the story, the character of Christian boy,
in performing a song, unintentionally asserts an ideological affront against the city’s Jewish community, while
Satan’s manipulative description of the boy’s song functions to assert another ideology that turns the Jewish
crowd against the boy. Metatextually, Chaucer’s narrator utters the story in such a way as to rhetorically sep-
arate the Prioress from himself, implying a kind of irony to the tale and its problematic Orientalist rhetoric—
while simultaneously, the very utterance of The Prioress’ Tale also edifies a problematic conception of the East,
regardless of any ironic intent. Thus, The Prioress’ Tale, Orientalism, and “Performative Utterances” all work
to shed light on one another. With Austin’s framework in mind, The Prioress’ Tale can serve to expand the idea
of performative utterances, emphasizing that speech acts contain a rhetorical power of utterance (a concept that
Austin indirectly posited) that can often occur inadvertently, but that nonetheless performs certain understand-
ings of the world into existence, consequently producing tangible consequences—often, in such a way that may
be divorced from any real intention.
Before going further, it is critical to establish the precise nature of Austin’s and Said’s rhetoric. Said’s
Orientalism investigates the phenomenon in which Western authors conceive of the East (“Orient”) as a sort of
alien Other, thereby defining the West as a superior “civilized” power. The pattern of Orientalism, Said explains,
largely manifests on the surface of a text, building its most basic ideas around the assumption of the East as an
exotic and uncivilized domain separate from the West. Indeed, he specifies that Western authors, when engaging
in Orientalist rhetoric, strategically locate themselves in relation to the East, creating narratives that alienate,
exoticize, and deprive agency from the East in order to ultimately reinforce a hierarchical dynamic of control
over it. In assessing the power of Orientalist rhetoric, furthermore, Said argues that Orientalism’s power extends
beyond simple theory or propaganda, and that “the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought,
imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West…[the West and East] sup-
port and to an extent reflect each other” (Said 1869). Thus, Orientalist rhetoric does not simply describe the
Western imaginings of the East, but rather brings into being a certain version of the East, resulting in real conse-
quences.
Austin’s “Performative Utterances,” in a similar fashion, examines the way in which speech extends
beyond simply describing reality and instead works to perform certain understandings of reality. Many of these
utterances, called speech acts, work to enact specific social functions; the utterances of “I now pronounce you
husband and husband” or “I sentence you to twenty years in prison,” for example, performatively reify a mar-
riage or a judicial sentence. Other speech acts, however, are subtler in their effect, appearing as descriptive state-
ments but actually serving to perform a rhetorical position that perceives the world in a certain manner; indeed,
Austin says, “when we state something or describe something or report something, we do perform an act which
is every bit as much an act as an act of ordering or warning.” (Austin 1299). Even when purporting to state
the fact of an event or description, an utterance works to implicitly influence the thoughts and actions of those
who receive it, conveying a description of “truth” that is itself grounded in a certain understanding of that truth;
Austin labels this power as the “force of utterance.” Ultimately, however, Austin does not fully articulate the
nature of a force of utterance, simply suggesting that utterances are frequently rhetorical and often fall outside a
simple true-false dichotomy. Subsequently, he offers that it is necessary to explore performative utterances fur-
ther. In the same way, Austin does not delve deeply into the intentionality behind speech acts, mentioning that
17 question of whether these utterances necessarily require intentionality. It is in this space of ambiguity that The
Prioress’ Tale and Orientalism may offer valuable insight into Austin’s theory, providing powerful examples of
the way in which utterances act not simply to describe fact but to assert, intentionally or unintentionally certain
understandings of the world.
Within The Prioress’ Tale, the power of performative speech is rather explicit. The central figure of the
tale is a young Christian boy in a city cohabited by Jews and Christians, who becomes captivated by and con-
stantly sings a song in praise of the Virgin Mary—leading to his murder in the city’s Jewish ghetto. Immediately
clear in the story is that an utterance as simple and straightforward as a song carries a performative force of
utterance, and that this force is carried regardless of intention. Indeed, the boy is referred to three separate times
as being “innocent,” and the narrator notes that “The swetnesse his herte perced so / Of Cristes mooder that, to
hire to preye, / He kan nat stynte of syngyng by the weye” (Chaucer 555-557)—he sings not out of malintent,
but rather because he is enraptured with the song and believes in the Christian understanding of the world that
it reflects. Regardless of his intention, however, the boy’s utterance of the song still produces tangible conse-
quences: its assertion of Christian truth is taken as a religious affront against the Jewish community, and the boy
is subsequently murdered for it. In this way, one can see that the song is more than a simple song, more than a
descriptive utterance of Christian faith. Rather, it is an utterance that performs a Christian understanding of the
world—an understanding that poses an existential attack against the city’s Jews.
The Tale further explores the power of utterance through the figure of Satan, who is able to use a seem-
ingly descriptive utterance to propound a particular understanding of the world, which in turn produces real
consequences. Soon after the boy begins singing the song on the way home from school, Satan appears to the
inhabitants of the Jewish ghetto:
[Satan] Up swal, and seide, “O Hebrayk peple, allas!
Is this to yow a thyng that is honest,
That swich a boy shal walken as hym lest
In youre despit, and synge of swich sentence,
Which is agayn youre lawes reverence?”
Fro thennes forth the Jues han conspired
This innocent out of this world to chace. (Chaucer 560-566)
to kill the boy. Rather, through the “simple” act of description—loaded with language implying a certain un-
derstanding of the world—he is able to rhetorically assert his conception of morality and shape the thoughts of
the Jewish listeners, leading them to murder the boy. Consequently, we may find that Satan’s utterance carries
power in its very performance; profoundly, the seemingly basic act of description has propounded a particular
conception of the world and thus instigated real action. Here, we may recall Austin’s assertion that few, if any,
utterances actually describe real truth or falsehood, instead propounding (and reifying) a particular conception
of the world in the act of speech. In this case, Satan’s descriptive utterance has instead proposed and created a
version of the world, which, in turn, produces material consequences—namely, the death of the young boy.
Further, in the events following the boy’s death, the Tale affirms the power of utterance to perform
certain conceptions of the world. After the murder, the boy’s mother frantically searches for him in the Jewish
quarter, and, after discovering his body, begins to weep—whereupon God intercedes and allows the boy to sing:
O grete God, that parfournest thy laude
By mouth of innocentz, lo, heere thy myght! […]
Ther he with throte ykorven lay upright,
He Alma redemptoris gan to synge
So loude that al the place gan to rynge.
[Subsequently, the city’s Christian assemble to witness the miracle, prompting the magistrate to arrest
and execute the Jews aware of the murder] (Chaucer 607-608, 611-613)
In the poem’s own words, God Himself uses the boy as a conduit to “parfournest [His] laude”, perform the ideo-
logical power of Christianity; the very utterance of the song explicitly reifies the Christian understanding of the
world, which consequently produces tangible effects. As with Satan’s manipulation of the Jewish citizens, the
boy’s miraculous utterance does not explicitly demand any justice, nor does it make any proclamation. Rather,
in performing its Christian ideology through speech, the utterance takes on a rhetorical power that prompts its
auditors to (in the internal logic of the story) avenge the boy’s death. Thus, the events of the entire Tale work to
offer a distinct way in which Austin’s power of utterance can be conceived. As Satan’s deception and the boy’s
miraculous song indicate, even simple songs and descriptions each carry within them a certain performative
power that enacts their respective understandings of the world and works to persuade others of these under-
standings. Furthermore, in examining the disparity between the innocuous intentions of the boy’s singing and its
ance—that utterances perform understandings of truth regardless of what the utterer means by them.
Beyond the events within The Prioress’ Tale itself, the story’s metatextual framing further speaks to the
nuanced power of performative utterance—and to its ramifications for Said’s Orientalism. Crucially, the events
of The Canterbury Tales are not narrated by an omniscient voice but are rather reported by a human Narrator
(who this paper will refer to as the Chaucer-Narrator), who describes other characters sharing their own stories.
Thus, the very fabric of The Prioress’ Prologue and Tale can be seen as two overlapping utterances: that of the
Chaucer-Narrator narrating the frame story, and that of the Prioress voicing her own tale. This tension is sharply
clear when viewed through the lens of the text’s proto-Orientalist depiction of the East. In particular, the Prior-
ess’ utterance of her story, and the othering rhetoric that she employs in describing the East, functions to fulfill
Said’s vision of Orientalist texts performing the false Orient into existence. On the other hand, the intrusion of
the Chaucer-Narrator’s narratorial voice into the Tale also works as a powerful descriptive utterance, one that
performs an understanding of the Prioress that undermines her problematic rhetoric.
Though not central to the plot of the Tale, the descriptive utterances that the Prioress employs in estab-
lishing the story subtly work to perform a kind of early Orientalist ideology through the text. In the opening
lines of the text, the Prioress’ narration immediately works to set the Tale not in the familiar West but in the
alien, vaguely hostile East:
Ther was in Asye, in a greet citee,
Amonges Cristene folk a Jewerye,
Sustened by a lord of that contree
For foule usure and lucre of vileynye,
Hateful to Crist and to his compaignye; (Chaucer 488-494)
Here, the Prioress strategically locates herself as an entity separate from the nonspecific-but-malignant East—
while simultaneously implying, through the very fact of her utterance, that she has the authority to rhetorically
identify the East itself. In this way, her rhetoric can be seen as distinctly Orientalist in its nature, beginning to
build “images, themes, and motifs [of the East] that circulate in [her] text—all of which add up to…ways of ad-
dressing the reader, containing the Orient, and…representing it or speaking in its behalf” (Said 1881). Further,
the Prioress’ othering description of the East functions, as Said argues, to constitute a false version of the Orient
for Western consumption—performing the Orient into existence through her utterance. Her utterance of her
treatment of the “Orient” by the West. Consequently, it is clear that, much as the utterances of the Christian boy
and Satan performed certain understandings and wrought certain consequences within the Tale, the oration that
forms the tale also carries significant power of utterance, enacting the dynamic of Orientalism itself into exis-
tence. This occurrence can work to expand the understanding of Austin’s power of utterance to include perfor-
mances not just of tangible realities, but also of purely conceptual ones—as both of these realities are deeply
influential on tangible events.
Simultaneously, the orating voice of the Chaucer-Narrator supplies a performative utterance of its own,
one which can be read as delegitimizing the narrative authority (and, one would imagine, the power of utter-
ance) of the Prioress. In his reported utterance of The Prioress’ Tale, the Chaucer-Narrator strives to separate his
narratorial utterances from those of the Prioress herself, doing so more strongly than in any of the other stories
in The Canterbury Tales. In the opening of The Prioress’ Prologue, Chaucer explicitly distinguishes the Prior-
ess’ narration from that of his own narrator:
O Lord, oure Lord, thy name how merveillous
Is in this large worlde y-sprad—quod she—
Forn night only thy laude precious
Parfourned is by me of dignitee, (Chaucer 453-456)
Here, unique to all of The Canterbury Tales, the Chaucer-Narrator uses the phrase “quod she” to indicate that
the utterance of the story originated from the Prioress—an insert that should be unnecessary, given that The
Prioress’ Prologue, as with the other prologues, are uttered by only one speaker. Yet, the Chaucer-Narrator’s
insertion persists, introducing a doubt into the Prioress’ narration and separating his narrative from himself.
Indeed, he even positions “quod she” as the first part of a rhyme, not only emphasizing the phrase’s importance
but also solidifying the phrase as an irreplaceable component of the poem’s rhythm. As a result, this utterance
by the Chaucer-Narrator is able to perform an understanding of the Prioress that acts counter to the Prioress’
own narrative, offering the chance, if his power of utterance is strong enough, to reconsider the entire poem. In
this way, the Chaucer-Narrator’s utterance may function to metatextually characterize the poem, casting it not
as an Orientalist text but as a purposefully, ironically problematic one. Moreover, Chaucer makes an additional
effort to separate his voice from the Prioress’ in the body of the Tale:
O martir sounded to virginitee,
The whyte Lamb celestial—quod she— (Chaucer 579-581)
Again, despite the fact that the Prioress would be the only character speaking in this tale, the Chaucer-Narrator
intrudes midway through the tale to call attention to the reported nature of the Prioress’ utterance, separating it
from his own narrative authority. Thus, the utterance, beyond simply describing the events of the frame story,
may be seen as actively performing some subtext of The Prioress’ Tale, manifesting (if the reader considers
the power of utterance strong enough) an understanding of the Prioress’ unreliability. This interplay between
utterances reflects another crucial lens through which Austin’s power of utterance might be understood: Speech
acts manifest understandings of each other, with even basic descriptions, such as Chaucer’s description of the
Prioress’ utterance, being able to undermine or reinforce an utterance’s power to convey a certain understanding
of truth as the Truth.
Of course, the ability of one performative utterance to undermine another depends on whether it has
considerable power of utterance. Viewed through the lens of Said’s Orientalism, it is clear that, despite the
Chaucer-Narrator’s apparent delegitimization of the Prioress’ utterance, the Orientalist ideology and effect of
her utterance still remain. Although the Chaucer-Narrator’s intrusion into the Prioress’ oration can be interpret-
ed as a strike against her credibility, the fact remains that this intrusion is subtle, available only through a deep
stylistic analysis of the Chaucer-Narrator’s utterance. The Prioress’ utterance, on the other hand, lingers on the
surface of the text, performing the Orient into existence regardless of any irony; this Orientalism exists plainly
on the surface, and, as Said himself says, “[Orientalist analysis] does not entail analysis of what lies hidden in
the Orientalist text, but analysis rather of the text’s surface, its exteriority to what it describes…Orientalism is
premised on exteriority” (Said 1882). Thus, even despite the Chaucer-Narrator performing the unreliability of
the Prioress’, the fact remains that the Prioress’ very utterance is a strong Orientalist statement that endures in
the text. Poignantly, much as the Christian boy performed, through song, an understanding of the world that led
to his death despite his pure intentions, the Prioress’ utterance performs an Orientalist conception of the world
that lingers, regardless of any ironic intention of Chaucer or the Chaucer-Narrator. Clearly, then, the intention
behind an utterance is inconsequential if it is not able to alter the power of the utterance’s performance.
Ultimately, The Prioress’ Tale offers the opportunity to examine and expand the phenomenon that Austin
describes in “Performative Utterances,” and to reckon this phenomenon with that of Said’s Orientalism. Clearly,
both the textual and metatextual utterances within the Tale serve to indicate that, as Austin began to theorize,
existence certain understandings of the world. Indeed, analyzing the Tale can work to develop from certain
gaps in Austin’s theory, advancing his understanding of the power of utterance and emphasizing performative
utterances may emerge in the absence of intention, thereby leading to complex felicitous and infelicitous conse-
quences. Further, viewed in light of the Tale and Orientalism specifically, several elements of powers of utter-
ance become clear. First, even descriptive statements contain rhetorically loaded language, and may perform
understandings of the world that produce real consequences (as evidenced by the utterances within the text of
the boy, Satan, and God-through-the-boy). Second, speech acts may subtly perform conceptual paradigms, such
as Orientalism (as evidenced by the Prioress’ oration of Orientalist rhetoric). Third, speech acts may work to
perform certain conceptions of and exercise certain influence over one another (evidenced by the Chaucer-Nar-
rator’s narrative intrusion into the Tale). Finally, intentionality does not, by any means, determine the power of
utterance (as evidenced by the lingering effect of the Prioress’ Orientalism). In considering Austin’s “Performa-
tive Utterance” further, it is critical to examine the many valences that speech acts may take on, with the ulti-
mate consideration that practically all statements, no matter how “descriptive” they may appear, still function to
perform a certain understanding of the world and still strive to make listeners subscribe to this understanding.
Works Cited
Austin, John L. “Performative Utterances.” From Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism Second Edition, ed.
Vincent B. Leitch, W.W. Norton, 2010, pp. 1289-301
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales: Fifteen Tales and the General Prologue: Authoritative Text, Sources
and Backgrounds, Criticism. Eds. V. A. Kolve and Glending Olson, W.W. Norton, 2005.
Said, Edward. Excerpt from Orientalism. Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism Second Edition. ed. Vin-
cent B. Leitch, W.W. Norton, 2010, pp. 1866-88.
“Untitled,” Madison Golden, University of Wisconsin-Madison
