In this powerful short story by LeGuin, the lead character is never
named, but it is inferred that it is Eve, as in Adam and Eve of the Garden. Eve
narrates the story, telling of how she convinced the animals that names are
unimportant. One by one, the animals agree to let go of their names, though the
Yaks have trouble with this concept. The female Yaks hold a council, deciding
to let their names go, and after awhile, the male Yaks agree.
Pets, specifically dogs and parrots, take great issue in letting go of
their names. As pets are closer to man than wild animals, it is understandable
that they would have a harder time in letting go of their identifiers. Yet, Eve
makes the pets understand that they can hold onto their capitalized names, like
Froo Froo, if only they let go of their generic monikers, like dog or parrot,
and so the pets too shed their names.
Among each other, nameless and free, Eve feels a closeness with the
animals of the garden that she has never felt before: “They seemed far
closer than when their names had stood between myself and them like a clear barrier: so
close that my fear of them and their fear of me became one same fear.” The
giving back of names (“loss of names” would hold the wrong connotation) by the
animals makes them equal to Eve, but she realizes that she is the last being in
the garden with a name, and it is not fair of her to hold on to her name when
she asked all the animals to give theirs back.
Eve goes to Adam
to tell him that she is giving back the name bestowed by “you and your father
[…] It's been really useful, but it doesn't exactly seem to fit very well
lately. But thanks very much! It's really been very useful." Though Eve’s
actions are revelatory, Adam does not care. He is described as working on
something, putting parts together, and overall he is only half-listening to
what Eve is telling him. The reader (and Eve) know that Adam does not
understand the import of what she has done by forgoing her name when he asks
the stereotypical patriarchal question: “When’s dinner?”
Names can have
power, and that power can be a divisive one, or at least that is what LeGuin insinuates
with her short story. The binary names humans give to gender (man, woman), the
names humans give to animals, or to objects, those are ways that humans seek to
control what is around them, not to give meaning, but to separate themselves
from nature, to say “I am better than you. I have control over you, and with
that control, I will name you and distance you from me”. Eve, like other women
in sf stories, does the opposite by placing herself in nature and making
herself an equal part of nature. Again, the motif of a loss of identity is
explored in this story, and again the author clearly states that one can be an
individual while at the same time surrendering themselves to the communal way
of living. It is an idea that humans struggle with, because humans only know
individuality in the form that it has been handed to us for generations: it
comes with separation from others, in the form of gender, class, or racial
individual names and personalities.
With Adam’s
response, and his lack of interest, LeGuin is stating that men may not be ready
to be a part of nature. To be equal with women, and then to be equal with
nature, is something men may not conceive of just yet.
