|
I suppose he had the name ready for a long time,
even then . . . the truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long
Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son
of God – a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that– and he
must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar,
and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby
that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent . . .
(Footnote (1)) |
But most of the time we have to guess whether or
not a name "means" anything and often run the risk of going too far. I once
wrote a paper on a Joseph Conrad story in which most of the names were
surely chosen for their meaning: The lone crew member of a ship, who stood
out for his stoicism, was named "Singleton." A dying sailor, who caused the
others to neglect their own duties out of sympathy for him was James Wait.
Certainly the name symbolized the fear of death. His body hesitates before
it will slide into the sea. He is a weight or burden to ship and crew. As
for the ship itself, it is called the Narcissus. AHA! That would tie
in with what the narrator calls the crew’s "egoism of tenderness to
suffering," for their sympathy and dread of death are really for themselves.
Perfect – until I uncovered a photograph of the
very ship on which the actual incident occurred. It was a lovely ship, with
name clearly visible — Narcissus. And listed among the crew was one
deceased sailor—James White. He was from Jamaica and would have, in the
clipped Jamaican English, have pronounced his name – "Wait." Ah, well. I
could say that at least Conrad didn’t change these names.
(Footnote (2))
I think it is worth taking the risk. When Herman
Melville calls his handsome, innocent sailor "Billy Budd," I think he is
trying to tell us something. "The narrator of Moby Dick tells us to
call him Ishmael, who is depicted in the Bible as an outcast. He names his
Captain after Ahab, whom we remember as devoted to Baal, the false god of
order.
________________________
Footnote (1) : Nick Carroway’s
name etymology is suspect here, but that is not important. It might be
interesting to have another look at the ESU Newsletter piece, "What Was Your
Name in the States?" [April, 2002]
Footnote (2): Sometimes
real names do seem to carry meaning beyond coincidence. The name of
Shakespeare’s Falstaff may well have been taken from a Sir John Fastolf. I
have elsewhere mentioned the disappointed immigrant, Crêvecoeur, whose name
means "broken heart."When James Joyce married Norah Barnacle, his father
grumbled, "He’ll never get rid of her." |
A look
at Henry James’s cast of characters shows him making ample use of the
device. The protagonist of one of his earliest novels, The American,
a deliberate effort to portray a prototype, is Christopher Newman, recalling
the discoverer and the idea of an original type in a brave new world. When
Newman falls in love with a French woman of an aristocratic family, he
encounters resistance on their part. They are the Bellegardes, the keepers
of the beautiful.
James continues this even in the ensuing,
increasingly sophisticated works. The American girl in Portrait of a Lady,
who aspires to make the most of herself, to fly a higher trajectory in her
life, is Isabel Archer. The man it would have been better for her to marry
than the corrupt European she chose is Casper Goodwood. In The
Ambassadors an American, similar in his innocence to Newman is Lambert.
His solid American companion, who gives him good advice, is Waymarsh. We
learn from James’ notebooks that the name was originally Waymark. Why did
James change it? Perhaps because Waymark’s counsel had no effect and Lambert
Strether was left to wander, deceived, through the swamp of European
society. Lambert’s naive counterpart in The Wings of the Dove, Milly
Theale, has a sensible friend who tries to protect her, Susan Shepherd
Stringham. The physician who tries to help Milly is Sir Luke and we may
remember the "beloved physician" and companion of Paul -- St. Luke. But the
sinister character who indirectly leads to her death in Venice is Lord Mark.
The patron Saint of Venice is San Marcos - or St. Mark.
There are many more names like this. One might
argue that any one of those choices is accidental or too far-fetched. But
there are so many that we cannot but perceive a way of doing things, a
pattern on the author’s part. It is just that later literature works by
hints and suggestion. Hemingway’s boy on the way to becoming a man, moving
from innocence to knowledge, is Nick Adams. William Faulkner gives us a
failed minister, in Light in August, who has lost touch with his
responsibilities in the real world. This the Reverend Hightower. But the
pregnant girl in that novel, who clearly represents nature’s life drive, is
Lena Grove.
You may remember the baleful nurse in Kesey’s
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Nurse Ratched, a name that makes us
think of a cold, mechanical, dehumanizing device. Think of the scam-artist
in Heller’s Catch - 22, Sergeant Milo Minderbinder, and why would
Heller name a general Sheisskopf?
We would expect to find in the literature
of a culture like ours many characters suggestive of Jesus Christ. This
turns out to be true, but almost always, the word "suggestive" is operative.
|