Abstract
In my paper, I deal with the reconstruction of performances that Jean Genet invented for his being in the world. My analysis is based on the close reading of Genet's play The Maids and some other texts of him.
I am interested in the concept of bodily performativity, which trespasses the borders of discourse. Peculiar performances and bodily experiences that cast light on the framed performative practices imposed on us socially, habitually, and culturally, are most easily to be found in people dealing with special circumstances like social isolation and mental disorders.
Bodily performativity exists in relation to discourse and language performativity. It enables transgressions of discourse in encountering aspects of the world, haecceitas.
Some encounters with strong bodily responses, e.g. epiphanies, have power to force the subject to reorganize their discourse. The denial to enter the social order to Genet, a delinquent later turned to a renowned writer, seems to have contributed to his observable weakened ability to maintain the social roles.
He did not identify with the role of the outcast still existing in the grid of the discourse, but he assumed the position outside the accepted. I argue, that performativity has need of the ability to freely oscillate between social roles and to appropriate spaces that have not been occupied socially yet.