The reinvention of humanity: Language, power and rebellion in Le Guin’s “She Unnames Them”

Abstract

What role language plays in the process of construction of the Self is an area of debate in many fields including linguistics, psychology, philosophy and literature. She Unnames Them (1985) by Ursula K. Le Guin is a short story in which the power of language is manifested through the female protagonist’s unnaming of animals in the Garden of Eden. Le Guin does not name the woman in the story because along with the animals, she gives her name back to Adam and his father. As a Biblical allusion of Genesis, the story gives readers a fresh version of the creation story in which women do not hold a passive, inferior, and subordinate position, on the contrary, the power of language is challenged and so is the position of authority. The female protagonist challenges the patriarchal assumption that power is the dominion of men and will remain so. Her rebellion causes a new life without inequality, stereotyping and, most importantly, without classes, to emerge. Through the female protagonist’s self-reinvention, a new era begins seeing that she leaves Adam and the Garden of Eden, taking the future generations with her. This is not just a story of a self-reinvention of a woman who was once named Eve, rather this is the story of the reinvention of humanity.