Comparing Jane Pilcher's 'Names Bodies And Identities'

In order to find his identity he went against his parent’s wishes in attending Columbia, but instead attending Yale. But before he set off for college he went through the legal process of changing his name. To his surprise it was a very mechanical task. His reasoning to the judge for the change “I hate the name Gogol, “he says I’ve always hated it.” “Very well”, the judge says stamping and signing the form, then returning it to the clerk. He is told the notice of the new name must be given to all other agencies, and that it’s his responsibility to notify the Registry of Motor Vehicles, banks, schools” (102). Although the moment in the courtroom was not as momentous as he had imagined, he stepped in there as Gogol Gangouli and left as Nikhil Gangouli in twenty minutes. A moment he waited eighteen years for finally arrived. Now that he is free of his parents and his old name, he can now be confident, especially with women in introducing himself without anticipating unwelcomed questions about his name.

Immigrants, since the mass immigration in the 19th century, have been changing their names to sound more American. Most feel that if they add an American name they will be more successful. Firoozeh Dumas’s excerpt “The ‘F Word’” was taken from Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America, published in 2003. Dumas tells her story about what growing up with an Iranian name feels like. She came to America, at the age of seven, knowing that challenges would arise, but what she did not know was someone would change her name into a complete insult and judge her because of it. Hoping she would make it through these obstacles she stepped blindly into the United States. Dumas tells her story by writing with a precise style of writing; using irony, metaphors, and excellent word choice, making it easy to understand her arguments.

This semester, I am taking Intro to Sociology and we have been looking at different perspectives of our society. One thing we are studying is how from at such a young age, we are taught to assign gender roles. In Patricia J. Williams’ magazine article, “Are We Worried about Storm’s Identity- or Our Own”, an essay taken out of the Nation magazine (June 2011), she tells a story about Storm, whose parents choose not to reveal the sex of their baby. She is a legal scholar and examines issues related to law and culture. Williams focuses on all the stereotypes that we associate with gender, how we as a society find social order in assigning gender roles, and the need to have the proper pronouns so that we know how/what to label a person. The author’s use of ethos and logos really brings the point home that we need to be more open about all the possibilities associated with gender and pronouns.

Maxine Hong Kingston has many unanswered questions about her father’s sister. Kingston explores all the possibilities of her aunt’s life and personality through her essay, “No Name Woman.” Her aunt profoundly disgraced her family by becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Although the aunt is punished by the family’s refusing to remember her, this punishment is entirely unwarranted because not only was the aunt clearly raped, she was raped by her husband’s father.

Even Eve does not want to be under the supremacy of Adam, so she also unnamed herself because for her, it is of no use and act of unnaming also shows the act of rebellion towards Adam, towards the man who is unaware that through names, everyone was divided. In other words, names given by Adam is a permanent mark of inferiority towards the people named. The primary representation in the story reinforce its main theme: names are nothing but names that portrays the “inferiority” of the person. Black people observed as people who are bullied and deprived by their right to live a good peaceful life and woman perceived as weak and incapable of doing things that man can do. The themes in Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” and Ursula Le Guin’s “She Unnames Them” reveals that racism and feminism having different sort (one short story is about feminism and one is about racism) when it comes to short stories, are recognized to have similar themes because these two are perceived as themes that shows inferiority and inequality of the person or the

Firstly, In the article “Girl fights to use unapproved name “language is visible as a name is a huge part of language and for each religion it differently spelled, pronounced and the way its given to a child. Name is a main part of language and it is main part of a person’s identity. However, in the article, “Girl fights to use unapproved name” Baler’s right of her identity is being taken away from her. Baler’s mom Eidsdottir is supporting language and identity for her daughter

The study explores different cases of immigrants who use their ethnic or English names. Some of the reasons for using English names are: the name provoking offensive reactions from the majority, growing too tired to explain the unfamiliar spelling and pronunciation, frequent questions about their ethnicity or where they originate from, assumptions of foreignness, name too long to fit in the system, frequent mistakes in the official documents because it is so unfamiliar (mixing up first/last name). Study states that the “unusual” name provokes and sets up a ground for power asymmetry; when a person from majority comments on an ethnic name, it can be viewed as having the right to make judgments about the immigrant, as if the name is subject for

Here McFadden has exhibited, in her own comical way, how tiresome it can be for an audience to listen to a speaker who has enacted gender neutral identifiers. Again, I find myself in agreement with our author, there must be more thought put into these changes. McFadden has done a very good job of demonstrating her claim in a way that almost puts you in the audience for a speech that has furnished these gender neutral changes. I don't want to have to listen to that and I wouldn't fault anyone else who had no desire to sit through a similar presentation.

As I read the book, The Handmaid’s Tale, I also thought of our previous lecture on “The Problem with No Name.” Friedan states that women in the past valued their life as being a good wife and mother, sharing power with her husband at home. According to her, most women had ignored the problem that had no name other than one’s wife or one’s mother, but became no longer possible to ignore their desire to find their true self outside of their house. The ignorance of their “name” and the desire to find their identities are aligned with the life of Offred and other handmaids. The Handmaid cannot have their real name which they were given from their parents. Instead, they should take their husband’s name. Because the name of Offred’s commander Fred,

Head and hair were horizontally facing Professor Barry as I anxiously wait for my turn. Introduce yourself; he said, I'm Roodelyne Pierrelus, and I’m a high school student. Professor Barry replied, I will always remember you because you are the only one with that hair. I was proud of my name because I learned to give my name it is substance, my name does not determine who I am, I choose what my name represents. Stereotypes are generalizations; Roodelyne no longer meant a promiscuous girl. I am Respectful, Optimistic, Organized, Determined, Encouraging, Loyal, Youthful, Natural, and Elegant. I am Roodelyne Pierrelus. Whether it is by her beauty or nationality, Isabella is already taken; Isabella is not me. I still love Spanish and admire the people. I have found my identity, not to its full capacity, but I’m no longer living in someone else’s

In her revolutionary book, ‘Bodies that Matter’, Judith Butler posits that identity lacks a social constitution outside of its social recognizability and iterability, that “the discursive condition of social recognition precedes and conditions the formation of the subject (171)”. Furthering this theory in application to gender, Butler claims that prior to an individual’s gender being recognized, there must be a discursive consensus on what male/female/deviant gender entails- what set of norms said gender involves and what ritualized actions must be performed to render these norms intelligible. Drawing upon Althusser’s theory of interpellation, Butler postulates that the individual is constructed, and thus gendered, on the basis of social

The concept of naming as a tool to shape relationships is a time-tested literary tool, which in addition to being employed in Jane Eyre, also features as a major discourse in Uglies. “Uglies’ slang is…ugly. It’s all about giving people nicknames that highlights their ugliness-Skinny, Squint,” the difference between Uglies’ use of naming and Jane Eyre’s use of naming is that in Uglies the young adults impress upon each other these oppressive names rather than a more privileged individual bestowing the names, which lower their own self esteems(Wilkinson 10). This tactic of encouraging self-depreciating names is a practice which internalizes the need in the young citizens to live for the day in which they turn sixteen and can be “reprieved” of their undesirable traits, their skinny frames and squinty eyes.

For many of us, name and gender are the two foremost criterions we judge a person by. It may be true that these two criteria complement each other most of the time. We do assume one’s gender based on their given name; being given a female name directly attributes the person to the female gender, vice versa if someone we to be given a male name. It is definitely not surprising since gender policing or gender segregation has occurred for many years such that it seems natural for us to practice it. I identify myself as a female because it felt natural, in addition to my biology. My name also supports my gender identity socially such that people could address me correctly in most public settings. Overall, it just feels right to me. However, based on personal experience I observe certain flaws in the two-gender nomenclature where people overgeneralize particular features a certain gender should or should not posses. In this paper, I will be arguing against this normalized viewpoint about what being a female is or is not. This widely universalized view on gender could be the result of the lack of flexibility in society’s viewpoint of a certain gender.

According to Penelope Eckert, and Sally McConnel-Ginet, who are scholars in the field of linguistics, and co-authors of the essay “Learning to be Gendered,” the development of a humans gender is a process that begins before birth and continues throughout the Childs life. Various areas have lists of names a parent must use before naming their child, author elaborates more on that, “Finland, for example, has lists of legitimate female and legitimate male names that must be consulted before the baby’s name becomes official (737).” Looking deeper into the quote Associating names to genders happens all over the world and many don't realize. At times people, myself included, hear a name and associate it with a specific gender, for example a majority of the time Daniel is associated with a male. Gender roles and identifications are learned and are passed down from generation to generation, the author states, “…adults will do the child’s gender work, treating it as a boy or as a girl, and…the child will learn to take over its part of the process…(737).” In other words As children we grow up learning and believing all males and females should be different and have different interests. As a kid if I wanted to wear a dress I would probably get in big trouble, many people would get it worse with a physical punishment. Whether I like it or not I will be the same to my kids because I've learned it my whole life, just as my parents did. Gender roles have developed so much in society it

In the 1970s, science fiction writer James Tiptree Jr. became exceptionally popular with his vivid tales of space and aliens. His stories included dark topics such as death and questions of gender roles. Avid fans had little doubt that the author was indeed a male. However, in 1976 James Tiptree Jr. was revealed to be someone other than he claimed to be. His real name turned out to be Alice Bradley Sheldon, a woman. This discovery shocked everyone as her stories were considered highly masculine, but there she was leading the male dominated genre as a woman masquerading as a man. Her choice to use a pseudonym was not entirely planned. She knew she couldn’t publish with her own name because of her previously published documents as a psychologist. Sheldon and her husband came up with the name “James Tiptree Jr.” as a joke based upon the name of a jar of Tiptree jam and she ended up liking it so much that a new persona was born (Phillips 211). However, Tiptree was not just a name to Sheldon. She saw him as an identity separate from her own, who had his own thoughts and personality (Phillips 213).