Chapter 10 name

... There is a girl who has not been introduced to you yet, who has been hiding in the shadows of the side corridor, but now she comes out and merges with the others around the altar.Let's call her Violet, no, Veronia, not Violet, she's a Catholic of Irish descent, that's not the right name.The Irish customarily name their children after figures of Celtic legends and saints.I like the associations of violets - crouching, penitent, brooding - the girl was small and dainty, with black hair, but a pale face, a pretty face covered with eczema and scarred; the nails could not be shorter, obviously It was bitten off, the fingernails were covered with nicotine stains; the corduroy jacket was well-cut and fashion-forward, but wrinkled and dusty.As you can guess from all this appearance, this girl is not innocent, has problems, and has a messy love life.

David Lodge, How Far Can You Go? "(1980) Well, let's leave Vic Wilcox aside for a moment and go back an hour or two in time and a few miles in space to meet a very unique character.One characteristic of this person that I find rather embarrassing is that she doesn't believe in the concept of a character.That is (and this is her mantra), she insists that "character" is just a bourgeois myth, a fantasy created to reinforce capitalist consciousness.Her name is Robin Purnrose, and she is now a lecturer in English Literature at Romicki University. Dave Lodge, "Good Job" (1988)

"Then," he said, "I'm glad to accommodate your request. My name is Quinn." "Ah," Stillman responded with a nod, "Quinn." "Yes, Quinn, QUINN." "I get it, yes, yes, I get it, Quinn. Well, it's very interesting. Quinn, it sounds so loud. Rhymes with Twain, doesn't it?" "That's right. Twain." "And Xin, right?" "That's right." "And Yin—one N—or Ian—two N's. Right?" "Not bad." "Well, it's so interesting. This word, this Quinn, can lead to many, many. ... Quatsons ... Quadity. Or, Quake, and Quill. And Quark, and Broad K. Um. Rhymes with Kylian. And Kim. Um, so interesting. And Wayne, and Finn. And Dean. And Gene. And Pinn. And Tine. And Bean. It even rhymes with Dean. Well, if you don't mind, there's Bean. Well, yes, it's very interesting. I really like your name, Mr. Quin. It hits So many associations.

"Yes, I often feel that way myself." Paul Austell, City of Glass (1985) One of the basic principles of structuralism is "the arbitrariness of signs," that is, there is no necessary connection between words and their signifiers.As someone said, "People call an animal a pig not because they have to," but because of a linguistic choice.Other words in other languages ​​serve the same purpose.As Shakespeare said: "Even if a rose is called another name, it still emits a fragrant smell." His discovery was three centuries earlier than Saussure. The situation with proper nouns is even stranger and more interesting in this regard.Our names are given by our parents, usually with a meaning, carrying their best wishes or hopes.The surname is different, with strong arbitrariness, no matter how strong the original description function is.For example, despite the surname Sheepherd, a neighbor would never be expected to think of him as a shepherd or a related occupation.But if he is a character in a novel, we will think of pastoral life or a biblical story.Why the venerable Henry James named a character in one of his novels Fanny Assingham is one of the most famous mysteries in the history of literature.

The names of characters in novels are never meaningless, they always carry some kind of symbolic meaning, even ordinary names have their ordinary meaning.Comic, satirical, or didactic writers are always extraordinarily inventive or markedly allegorical in naming their characters (Thwackum, Pumblechook, Pilgrim).Realist writers like to use mundane names with a certain meaning (Emma Woodhouse, Adam Bede).In short, naming is also an important part of creation in the process of portraying characters. There are many aspects to consider, and sometimes it takes a lot of effort. I have a deep understanding of this aspect.

My novel "How Far Can You Go?" "Use a question sentence as the title of the book, which itself is not only using radical theology to disrupt traditional religious beliefs, but also disrupting literary conventions by "breaking the framework"; Section 2).For a writer to openly change his mind in a novel, to change a character's name, is tantamount to loudly admitting that the whole story was "made up," something the reader knows but the writer tends to refrain from, as in Religious believers tend to suppress skepticism as well.It is also against the practice of realist writers for the novelist to explain the meaning of the characters' names to the reader, because the meaning should be experienced by the reader himself.

The invention of the word processor made it easy to change the name of a character in the later stage of creation, just by pressing a few keys.But I am against this approach, unless the characters are insignificant.Naming a character is not an easy task, and it often requires careful consideration and a lot of hard work; once it is decided, the name is inseparable from the person.If the name is questioned halfway, it will be like the deconstructionists say, it is like throwing the whole project into the bottomless abyss.I was deeply touched by this in the process of creating "Good Job".

The novel is about the relationship between a general manager of an engineering company and a young academic who must "protect" him.There are some frame-shattering elements in the book, as indicated in the preceding quotes, but overall it's the same as How Far Can You Go? "In comparison, its reality is stronger.In the naming of the characters, I used some "natural" names, trying not to point out the consistency between the symbol and the reality.I named one of the characters Vic Wilcox, a common English name which, among other things, suggests an aggressive, even brutish masculinity (via Victor , Will, Cox's association).Later, I named the heroine Puen Rose (meaning "pen and rose") because the two have two distinct meanings of literature and beauty.However, I had a lot of trouble choosing a name for her. Should it be Rachel, Rebecca, or Roberta?I couldn't make up my mind.I still remember that the progress of the creation of the second chapter was hindered because of this, because the name could not be decided, and my imagination of the characters could not be developed.Finally, in a dictionary of personal names, I found that Rabin or Robin could sometimes be used as a nickname for Rebecca, a masculine name that was perfect for my feminist, self-important heroine, and gave me an immediate hint. A new detail emerges: Wilcox thinks a male Robin is coming to his factory.

About halfway through writing, I realized that my idea of ​​using the name Vic was probably similar to that of FM Foster.He also named one of his important characters Wilcox in "Howard's End"-that is, Henry Wilcox, also a businessman who fell in love with intellectual women.Instead of renaming my characters, I used Howard's End and my novel as examples of cross-references between texts, emphasizing similarities between the two—for example, the T-shirt worn by Robin's student Marion It bears the inscription: "One and Only Fusion". (There is also a similar inscription in the frontispiece of Forster's novel).Why Marion?Probably because she was still a young girl, innocent, virtuous and quiet, Robin (referring to Robin Hood, the hero of the green forest in the British legend) couldn't wait to protect her; it might also be because George Eliot (the writer taught Robin featured prominently in ) was born Marianne Evans as a young man.I say "probably" because writers are not always conscious of their motives in these matters.

"The City of Glass" by Paul Austell is an outstanding novella, which together with two other equally excellent novellas constitutes the "New York Trilogy".The passage quoted above from "The City of Glass" pushes the meaning of the names of characters in literary works to an extremely ridiculous situation.The three stories in the trilogy use the skepticism of postmodernism to criticize the old model of traditional detective novels.Postmodernist writers are skeptical about the identity of characters, the causality of events, and their meaning. Quinn, the character in "The City of Glass," wrote detective novels himself, under the pseudonym William Wilson, which happened to be the name of a character in one of Edgar Allan Poe's famous stories.Poe's story tells of a man who goes after his own ghost (see section 47).In "Glass City", Quinn is mistaken for "Paul Austell of Austell Detective Agency".He played the role by mistake and followed a professor named Stillman.The professor had just been released from prison and was particularly feared by a patient named Quinn, who sometimes went by the name Wilson and sometimes Austell.Stillman wrote a book in which he concluded that the arbitrariness of symbols stemmed from "original sin."

One of Adam's tasks in Eden was to invent language and give names to various animals and things.In a state of innocence, his words directly touch the essence of all things.He does not attach words to what he sees, but reflects its essence, bringing it to life.Objects and names can be converted to each other.After Adam fell out of favor, all this ceased to exist.Names are separated from things; words accumulate into a heap of arbitrary symbols, and language is separated from God.Therefore, the story of the Garden of Eden records not only the fall of human beings, but also the fall of language. As if to prove his point, Stillman unraveled Quinn's name with his string of grotesque associations when he finally met with it.But the name Quinn has no connotation, so it is of no use to the reader and does not serve as an explanation. In the second story "Ghost", all the names of the characters are color words.First is blue.Then there was white, and then there was black; at first it was brown.Brown trained him and taught him the rules. When Brown was old, Lan took over.That's how it started...it couldn't be simpler.White asked Blue to follow a man named Black, and asked him to stare at Black as long as possible. Austell reaffirms the arbitrariness of language with this apparently fictitious naming system, referencing this arbitrariness to areas that do not belong here (fictional names).In the third story, the narrator admits that he imitated the novelist's practice of falsifying the census: The funniest is fake names.Sometimes I have to rein in the urge to go too far - like with some highly comic words, puns, swear words, etc. - but mostly I'm just content to play with words within the limits of realism game. In all three stories, the author always tries to connect the signifier with the signified, in order to restore the mythical innocence of the interchangeability of things and names.The impossibility of this desire is reflected in the plot, that is, the routine of detective work is numerous, but it is fruitless.Every narrative ends with the death or despair of some detective, confronted with unexplainable mysteries, always caught in a maze of names.