Summary Of Identity Formation By Jane Butler

One of the salient topics of Butler's essay is the concept of identity formation and the subversive politics therein. She begins with an assessment of the creation of non-self-initiated identity, an action that places meaning onto people that naturally could not exist. Butler uses the example of police action to illustrate the interpolative nature of addressing via the notion of "the reprimand", In essence, we are witnessing the linguistic creation of identity. The subject did not exist before the address; it was the act of addressing that created their new status. To put it simply, they are a subject because they are a subject.