ABSTRACT
The 'you will', the force of its repetition, the placing of 'now' and 'me' combine to suggest a flavour of what J. L. Austin calls a performative utterance, in which the verbs 'tell', 'trust', 'give', although made predictive by the future tense, become themselves a form of enactment. The imperatives, masked also as implied questions to soften Grandcourt's assumption of her obedience, express in their tact his pleasure in the rhetoric of persuasion that triumphs over Gwendolen's 'piteous equality in the need to dominate' (346). No wonder 'she had a momentary phantasmal love for this man who chose his words so well' (347).
