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¡¡¡¡The Theatre of Faith: Margery'sChristian-ness as Performance¡¡¡¡Butler's interrogation of gender formation may thus serve as an analyticalmodel for a performance study of the Book: Could the way gender identitiesare performed into being also apply to religious identities, e.g., the Christian-ness and mystic-ness of Margery£¿ Was late medieval life a mimetic theatre inwhich identities were but subjectivity-nullifying performances, too£¿9 If ourastonishing Margery was performing as well, how precise was her mimesis orreiteration, how efficacious were her performances, and how was she able to,as it seemed, "escape" performativity and perform at variance£¿¡¡¡¡To answer these, the first stop is to revisit the late medieval social theatreand locate the social scripts and directing authorities, so that we can examineher performance in its historicity. Given the breadth of the medieval socialcanvas, the analysis below will focus on the most basic identity of a latemedieval man or woman, that of being a Christian. In theory, a Christian is adescriptive term referring simply to anyone who accepts and believes in theBible's contents and ideas. In execution, however, one is never a Christiantill recognized so by the Church. Just like the Butler baby who is girl-ed intogirlhood by a doctor, a medieval English baby is appellated into its Christianidentity when the priest dabs water on its forehead, saying performatively, "Ibaptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost.Amen."This done, the baby's future-to-be becomes clearly foreseeable. He/She will attend the Mass, since very young and on a weekly basis, and say themorning, noon, evening prayers, or pray over dinners, on a daily basis. He/Shewill also in due turn takes five of the six other sacraments that punctuate anaverage Christian's life journey ¡ª¡ª Confirmation, Matrimony or Holy Orders,Extreme Unction. and at ereater freauencies the sacraments of Eucharist and Penance ¡ª¡ª each of them marking his/her accession to a new stage of life,wearing a new social identity yet remaining shaded by the umbrella identity ofa Christian.¡¡¡¡Presumably, one does all this because he is £¨already£© a Christian, yet aButlerian analysis suggests that one is a Christian exactly because he has doneit all in the Christian way. In Butlerian terms, being Christian is a performance,the effect of stylized repetition both in terms of its formation and of itsmaintenance.¡¡¡¡¡­¡­