Once Blind, Now Seeing: Problematics of Confessional Performance

Abstract

This essay traces some problematics of confessional discourse in which the performative self (doing the confessing) claims to have transcended the constative self (being confessed about) in literary, religious, forensic, and therapeutic contexts. These speech acts cast their audiences as voyeurs or absolute others, allow for the transference of guilt between confessor and confessant, and give the illusion of self-overcoming while leaving broader social structures fundamentally unchallenged and unchanged. Despite the promise of intersubjectivity they can, by their reliance on ontological individualism, hinder a more fruitful, answerable dialogue between performer and audience. The essay illustrates some of these limitations of confessional agency via a reading of Spalding Gray's monologue, It's a Slippery Slope.