Names

When I think about the name "problem," I think less about what it means than about how it characterizes the style of the narrative. I think it's very important inasmuch as Blindness is a modern parable. Characters with titles instead of names are very typical of folk tales/storytelling, and I think in Blindness, the titles simplify (maybe clarify) the characters. Initially, they confine the characters to the initial judgments the reader is guided to make about them, and, as the story progresses, these judgments are confirmed/denied/basically tinkered with. Very typical of a fairy tale, where the question is identity: We have a king and a peasant. Is the king a peasant in spirit, and the peasant really a king? Will unexplained, extenuating circumstances reveal the king and peasant for who they really are? (That the blindness is never explained is VERY fairy tale-typical. Why do Cinderella's sisters hate her anyway? Why does the spell only last until midnight? To ask this is to disrupt the timeless, placeless environment where the tale takes place and destroy the universality of its themes, which is the point of fairy tales in the first place.) None of this rambling responds to Joe's questions--It's just a different way of approaching the names problem.
  posted by jnuh @ 12:26:00 PM

 
One Week Warning!

I'm finished, as I'm guessing a number of you are or are close to being.
  posted by jnuh @ 3:59:00 PM