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13 October 2007 She Unnames Them by Ursula Le Guin She Unnames Them by Ursula Le Guin is an amazing example of Ursula Le Guin's talent. This short story belongs to the anthology Buffalo Gals, and Other Animal Presences. This short narration in behalf of Eva in Paradise brings the reader an understanding that Le Guin's creative activity is somewhat different from the novels and stories of other science fiction writers. When you read the story, you notice that the very style of narration is more humanitarian, as it places an emphasis on anthropology and sociology. She Unnames Them explores the themes of cultural interaction.
This is the story about human soul, the conflicts, exotic and unusual interrelations. The author spends a lot of efforts to show the unusual nature of Eva's attempt to unnames the insects and animals. It is quite difficult to speak about the story with drawing no parallels between the Eva's life in Paradise and the modern world. She Unnames Them is not only the allegory, but rather an in-depth philosophical investigation of the world around us related to the issues of personal freedom and social constraints.
Ursula Le Guin's world is very convincing in its slightest details. The story is rich in characters with very distinctive features. Probably, one can easily discover human traits of character in Ursula Le Guin's animals. She writes that most of the animals accepted namelessness with the perfect indifference with which they had so long accepted and ignored their names (Le Guin), while some of them, stubborn and opinionated, like yaks, protested, because these names "sounded right, and that almost everyone who knew they existed called them that. In contrast to other stories, "She Unnames Them" seems to have a specific aim, as the very nature of need for change appears to be inside the character (Eva).
This aim may be expressed through Eva's desire to reach moral maturity, to overcome her inner 'self', to grasp and absorb completely another culture (Reginald 15), to find the answer for the question she wanted, and many other ideas. To a certain extent a short story "She Unnames Them" may be interpreted as a parable about the process of becoming adult both in a literary and figurative sense of the word, the process of encountering something unknown and un perceivable, the story about life and the desire to find peace inside the woman herself. When you read She Unnames Them you suddenly come to conclusion that Ursula Le Guin is firmly convinced in a mystical inner power of the words. The story is rich in descriptive words; short and long, simple and whimsical, decorative and ascetic, all of them as if encircle the reader and make him astonished by the inner power of Ursula Le Guin's thoughts. The words are Ursula Le Guin's environment; they are bright and dull, brisk and strong, vivid and colorless; yet, the words are like paint for the artist, or like musical sounds for the composer. It seems that the author wants to show that any words and names, if used correctly, in the right time and right place, have some superficial and mysterious power.
To a certain extent, Ursula Le Guin's mystery and art in She Unnames Them are hidden under correct use of the words (Rochelle 127). Another interesting idea the reader can encounter while reading this story is that apart from artistic and literary outstanding features of Ursula Le Guin's She Unnames Them, there is some sort of connection between Le Guin's ideas of uncaring the plants and animals (the nameless) and eastern philosophy (Cummins 26). To a certain extent this story presents an unexpected angle at political and social problems of the modern society, with acute psychological coloring. In Ursula Le Guin's interpretation the yaks, being wild animals, didnt like the idea of abandoning their names.
They discussed the matter for a long period of time, almost all summer. Some of them thought that the name itself is very useful, while others considered that the very idea of naming animals was redundant because animals have never called themselves by name, as they "never spoke it themselves and hence might as well dispense with it" (Le Guin). The domestic animals didn't protest, as only few of them did care "what anybody called them since the failure of Dean Swift's attempt to name them from their own vocabulary (Le Guin). All other animals, such as swine, sheep, cattle, mules, asses, goats, chicken, and others readily agreed to give their names back to people to whom the animals belonged to. However, there was a problem with pets.
The cats, being an independent creatures, readily denied ever having had any name other than those self-given, unspoken, ineffably personal names (Le Guin), while the pets who are historically claimed to be extremely devoted to their owners, like dogs, and, probably, some parrots, mynah's, and ravens, had some trouble because they also insisted that their names are very important to them, and refused to become unnamed. However, after those pets understood that it was the matter of individual choice, the problem was finally settled out. As one reads the process of being unnamed, he can easily draw a parallel between the modern people and all the participants of the story (Cummins 81). However, probably, the most interesting thing occurs when the story approaches the end. When Eva, pleased by her success, and by the fact of accomplishing something really important (as giving names to animals and plants was obviously the God's or Adam's idea), came to Adam with the desire to give back the gift, Adam was too busy with his own affairs and said only "Put it down over there, O. K. ?" (Le Guin) and went on with what he was doing.
Eva felt a little let down, as she was prepared to defend her decision, and, suddenly, everything was almost useless, as nobody cared about it. However, she continued what she decided to do, and went out of the garden, going with the unknown and nameless to the nameless and unknown without being capable even to explain herself, with the words being so slow, as new, as single, as tentative as the steps Eva took going down the path away from the house. This short story leaves an unforgettable impression, as it is perceived as unusual mixture of mystics, modernity, boldness, hesitation, Jungian psychology, Ursula's Daoistic world outlook. This story offers an unusual interpretation of life in Paradise; it explores the problems of choice and identity, integrity and interaction with the world around us.
When you read the story, you understand that the world consists of two different parts, where each of these parts has the right of existence. "She Unnames Them" is not only an allegoric story, but the story which prompts the reader the necessity of a process of evolution. It seems that, according to Le Guin, evolution is not the way the person should undertake to achieve success in the world, or to change it in compliance with the person's will, but, on contrary, the real evolution, or the maturity of a personality is the Way, or the Path (the reader should take into account that the way, or Dao is one of the key concepts in Davis). This Path brings the person to a certain initial point, as it allows achieving the balance and inner harmony. Evidently, the image of this Path is illustrated in Ursula Le Guin's She Unnames Them, as Eva there undergoes the process of evolution, while returning to the initial point, uncaring everything that exist, and leaves, thus finding the inner balance and inner harmony.
Works Cited Cummins, Elisabeth. Understanding Ursula K. Le Guin. University of South Carolina Press, 1990. Le Guin, Ursula. She Unnames Them. 1987. 13 October 2007 < web >.
Reginald, R. et al. Winds of Change in the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin.
Zephyr and Boreas, 1997. Rochelle, Warren G. Communities of the Heart, The Rhetoric of Myth in the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin. Liverpool, England: Liverpool University Press, 2001.
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