INTRODUCCIÓN.
The text ‘She Unnames them’ by Ursula Leguin in 1985 was written with the intention
to demonstrate that we are more than just the names and labels that the strongest
members of society impose. It’s a rather sarcastist text which reflects that women in
general have been defined and redifined as the weekest sex from the beginning of
times. Throughout history, females have been molded, labeled, rejected and taken for
granted just for being considered inferior in the eyes of men in terms of power and
capabiliy. The destiny of a woman was reduced to nothing more but to be a motherly
figure who not only had to develop childcare skills but also everything needed to
please and take good care of her husband. Her own needs and desires were taken to a
second place until the point that most of them were unconscious of their true value
and considered that even the thought of doing something that was only accepted for
men was innapropriate and wrong. In the past just a few women were strong enough
to fight for gender equality and women’s empowerment. The first step for women was
to realize that they actually had a voice to use in order to have the opportunities they
truly deserved.
BODY TEXT:
The complex process that begins when women become aware of their unfair position
in society followed by the fight for their own identity is exactly what Le Guin’s text
wants to express. She realized that no one should have the power to put a name and
decide the fate of living beings based on that particular label. Most importantly, no
one can define our true value and no one has the right to limit our opportunities in life
depending on gender, economic, cultural, political or religious interests. In
Shakespeare’s play
Romeo and Juliet, in the speech of Act II, Scene II the line said by Juliet ‘A rose by any
other name would smell as sweet’ is another beautiful and clear example which
proves that an imposed name doesn’t dictate fate. What Romeo and Juliet felt for each
other was stronger that the hate the name of these two families represented. Le Guin
draws on both scientific and literary resources which enrich her text and help readers
understand that the impact of imposing a name and categorize living beings had been
studied and adressed by intellectuals and not just feminist like herself. One of them
was Carolus Linnaeus, the eighteenth-century scientist who invented the system of
scientific classification of plants and animals. On the other hand, Jonthan Swift’s
attempt to name horses in Gulliver’s travels as well as the poem in which T.S. Elliot
claims that cat’s have ‘ ineffably personal names’ which they give themselves and
don’t share with anyone else.
The Second wave of feminism that ocurred between 1960 and 1980 in the United
States and had a great impact all over the world is a crucial movement that I will
analyze in order to explain the essence and influence of ‘She unnamed them’ by
Ursula Le Guin. During those revolutionary years, a subtle yet determining feminist
movement showed how the hypocrisy and tyranny of the strongest ones are
sometimes exposed. Hence, the weakest become aware of their true value, take
courage and fight for their rights, drastically changing the reality of life itself.“My
words now must be as slow, as new, as single, as tentative as the
steps I took going down away from the house” (Ursula K. Le Guin) (line
6 starting from the end). These words are pronounced by the female
character in the story that Le Guin wrote and they reflect the transgression that She
has been through in order to find herself and changed her path. We can assume that
the writer is
talking about Eve because K. Le Guin makes references to God, Adam and the
paradise based on Genesis. However, what
truly catches the reader’s attention is the fact that the writer never uses
