M-Sex Nine A Rose By Any Other Name
Let's talk about the subtext behind everyone's names -- both given at birth and by the narrator.
Consider: Calliope, our narrator, is also the muse of Greek poetry. The home the family moved into was on Middlesex Boulevard. Lefty refers to a characteristic some cultures take to be evil. Desdemona is the wife of Othello (who was driven to violence in part by his love for her) in Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. Even the folks whose names we don't know -- The Object (because she was one) and Chapter Eleven (so-called because he ran the family business into bankruptcy) -- are sly commentaries. Were there other examples of this? Are there other meanings to be found in these names?
Consider: Calliope, our narrator, is also the muse of Greek poetry. The home the family moved into was on Middlesex Boulevard. Lefty refers to a characteristic some cultures take to be evil. Desdemona is the wife of Othello (who was driven to violence in part by his love for her) in Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. Even the folks whose names we don't know -- The Object (because she was one) and Chapter Eleven (so-called because he ran the family business into bankruptcy) -- are sly commentaries. Were there other examples of this? Are there other meanings to be found in these names?
posted by JenniNapa at
8:20 PM
3 Comments:
I liked the names that seemed to be plays on other things, like Desdemona. The Object and Chapter Eleven really annoyed me, because I had a hard time thinking of them as anything other than a sexual object or a bankruptcy. And I hated that you could tell from the beginning that Chapter Eleven was destined for that, just because of his name. I think it narrowed their characters down to just one element. Which probably was in fact the author's purpose, but still bugged me.
Not sure I actually answered the question, but those are my thoughts on that topic. :)
By
mamashine, at 11:51 AM
Actually, I really hated that the road that they moved onto was "Middlesex." I, as a rule, dislike irony in fiction. It usually seems contrived, because it is.
I didn't understand all of the meanings behind the names, so thanks, Jenni, for pointing them all out. I didn't have the same problem that Kelli did, since I could not figure out why the brother was called Chapter Eleven. Now it makes more sense.
John Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Might this have been where Eugenides got the name for that character? I haven't read this particular work, but the title alone seems to foreshadow Milton's life...
By
MamaChristy, at 7:28 PM
I really was bothered by Chapter 11. It seemed that Cal had a fairly normal relationship with his brother and yet he never rated a name, just a title. Was what he did later in life such a terrible thing? Think about all of the other things that other characters did. Was bankrupting the family and endangering Tessie's last days such a terrible thing? Or was that it--that Cal always felt that Tessie was the one person who really was there for him, even in times when she made the wrong decisions, and so letting her down was the worst thing someone could do?
By
Kate, at 9:12 PM
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