"Oral peoples commonly think of names (one kind of words) as conveying power over things. Explanations of Adam's naming of the animals in Genesis 2:20 usually call condescending attention to this presumably quaint archaic belief. Such a elief is in fact far less quaint than it seems to unreflective chirographic and typographic folk. First of all, names do give human beings power over what they name: without learning a vast store of names, one is simply powerless to understand, for example, chemistry and to practice chemical engineering. And so with all other intellectual knowledge. Secondly, chirographic and typographic fold tend to think of names as labels, written or printed tags imaginatively affixed to an object named" (Ong location 705).
Think of the accomplishments of chemistry and how that one area of science has changed our world. We would not recognize our world without it. Names matter not just in that it allows us to google someone or look up their name in a phone book. All names matter. Without names, we cannot technologically move forward. I do not only mean in the sciences. How can we discuss literature without the terms that bring us all to one thought. That is the key to a name; a name brings many to one idea. If I tell another person versed in the language of literary criticism that I am looking at a text using reader-response theory they will know what work I am doing and how I have come to my specific conclusion. To bring a broader group into our hypothetical discussion, if I am in a room with a large crowd and I say the words "Star Wars" I would assume that many would think of the movie and/or President Reagan's missile defense system. If I say to this crowd, "I am a citizen of the USA" I would hope all of them would know what I was speaking of.
Maya Angelou visited here not long ago and I was fortunate enough to hear her speak. It was an amazing evening. She spoke to us about many things, but one her topics was acceptance. I purchased a copy of one of her books, in which I found the following poem:
The Calling of Names
He went to being called a Colored man
after answering to "hey nigger, "
Now that's a big jump,
anyway you figger,
Hey, Baby Watch my smoke.
From colored man to Negro
With the N in caps, was like saying Japanese
instead of saying Japs.
I mean during the war.
The next big step
was a change for true,
From Negro in caps
to being a Jew.
Now, Sing Yiddish Mama.
Light, Yellow, Brown
and Dark brown skin,
were o.k. colors to
describe him then,
He was a Bouquet of Roses.
He changed his seasons
like an almanac,
Now you'll get hurt
if you don't call him "Black."
Nigguh, I ain't playin' this time.
(Angelou 45).
The very name you allow others to refer to you by matters. My daughter is finding this out; she intends to change her last name when she turns 18 in June. Why change your name? It does not mean you are someone different. This is what I asked her anyway, hoping she would come up with a good answer. She told me that it does matter; that your name associates you with your family and their actions as well as your own. For reasons I will not discuss, she wishes to take the name of the man who is helping me raise her instead of keeping her father's. This name change distances her from one man and his family, and is an act of acceptance to another. She does not need to hide her identity, she was Outstanding Youth of the Year as proclaimed by the Chamber of Commerce last year. She does not need to be someone else, but in doing this she is stating who she is and who she has become. That is the magic of a name.
Names associate and disassociate ideas for people. They hold power. Growing up in the 70's-80's the very word "communism" meant something sinister, scary, and dangerous. A communist was someone to be hated no matter any other belief they held. It did not matter if they were an extremist or just someone who was born into a political system with no knowledge that anything else was possible. Personally, the whole thing made me curious. I wanted to go find the nearest communist and poke at them. I wanted to see what they thought, if they played in a sandbox and went to school and rode a bike and like books and music like me or if they truly were everything I was told.
I could be wrong, but while growing up, I never heard of a President of the United States being referred to as Mr Whateverhislastname. It was always Mr President or President Whateverhislastname. When George Bush Jr was sworn in as President, all of a sudden I was hearing people call him Mr. Bush. What's up with that? was my first thought. Then I realized that it seemed the people who were referring to him as such did not agree the election was fairly won. My opinion was that it did not matter how it came to be, that is how things were going to go for at least four years. The important thing, in my mind, was to stick with tradition due to respect of the office if not of the person. Names and titles matter.
After thinking about all this, I can now see how the people portrayed by Yates thought memory was linked to magic. Words, titles, names hold power. Memorizing them gives you power. Don't believe me? Try to figure out Calculus, Chemistry, Literature, or any other academic subject without learning any terms. Actually, maybe if you do intend this you may want to stay out of the Chem Lab-I can already hear the explosion.
Literature often uses names to convey meaning beyond the descriptions of characters. In Moby Dick, the story begins with, "Call me Ishmael" (Melville 17). He does not actually say his name is Ishmael, but he would like the audience to refer to him as Ishmael which is a huge debate which I will reserve for another time. However, noting that this name as well as others come from the Bible, another meaning may be discovered.
Going back to Maya Angelou's poem, it is obvious she knows that titles and names have power beyond magic. When she says she will not longer play in the last line of the poem, she is setting an example. Throughout the poem she seems to ridicule this name game. If they would stop labeling themselves and reject their own labels they would not be different. What if we did not have labels for races? What if we were all just people? Perhaps a certain peace would come to the world. This is extremely unlikely, we love to name and categorize. It is a magic we love to practice. It does not always work well in that after a name is accepted it is hard to change. People tend to remember names and associate events and feelings with those names. So, although I wish my daughter luck, to many she will still carry her father's name.
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