When it comes to literature, names hold a lot of meaning. While it often seems trivial, the name of certain characters can often tell a lot about their personality. Would Scarlett O'Hara seem as spoiled without her uniquely southern name?* Would Voldemort be as creepy without an evil-sounding moniker? Would Winne the Pooh seem as cuddly if he had been named Randolph instead?
Then again, it is almost
more telling when a character stars in a story and is never given a name. They're the main character, after all, shouldn't their name be the most important? Not necessarily. It dawned on me the other day that in a number of pieces I've read, I had gotten to the end and noticed that I had no idea the name of the protagonist. Below are the five most notable things I've read without a named main character.
5. Father and Son,
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
This is
one of the novels I read last year, and it is fascinating to note that very few names are used in the entire story. It's set in a post-apocalyptic America and is about a man and his young son traveling across the country in search of food and civilization. Names weren't important in a world without photo IDs, application forms, or addresses. The man knew his son, the son knew his father, and they didn't need (or even want) to know the names of anyone else.
4. Narrator,
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
I must admit, I saw the film adaptation before I read the book. I almost never do that, but then again I didn't know it was based on a novel until sometime after I'd seen it. I was a little slow to the game. It is now one of my favorite movies, and the friend who recommended it to me also pointed out later that Ed Norton's character never had a name. It's told in the first person by the a narrator (played by Edward Norton), and his namelessness is fitting for a character who essentially looses his identity and takes on the split personality of Tyler Durden.
3. Narrator,
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
I read this book not too long ago because it was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into a film - if it was good enough for him to make a movie out of, then surely it's worth reading. I have not seen the movie yet, but absolutely adored the novel and the mystery it entails. I had no idea until reading a mention of it later that the name of the woman telling the story is never revealed! Everyone refers to her as "Mrs. de Winter," and the namesake of the novel itself is actually the
former Mrs. de Winter, around whom the mystery spins. Her married life is overshadowed by the life of Rebecca, so much so that despite being the narrator, we never learn who she really is.
2. Lenore's lover,
The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
One of the most famous poems of all time,
The Raven tells of a man tormented by a bird who comes to his home and says only the word "Nevermore" over and over again, reminding him that he will never again see his lost love, Lenore. While the tale is beloved by many (I personally know the first stanza by heart!), parodied by everyone including
The Simpsons, and even has a sports team named in honor of it (re: the Baltimore Ravens), no one - save maybe Poe himself - knows the name of the man who was haunted by his love and a peculiar talking bird.
1. Woman,
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
I love short stories - in high school we read lots of them, and I still count
many of them of some of my favorite works of literature. One of my favorites is
The Yellow Wallpaper, first published in 1892, about a woman whose life is stilted by the men around her until she is driven into complete madness, obsessed with the wallpaper in the room she is confined to, as she has nothing else to distract her. She is forbidden from working, writing, and conversing with others by her husband, a doctor who believes it to be a cure for "slight hysterical tendencies," a common diagnosis of women when their husbands didn't understand them. She is never named, presumably, because she as a woman is not as important as the men around her.
*Fun Fact: Margaret Mitchell considered naming her "Pansy" but changed it just before publication!
