She Unnames Them Ursula Le Guin Summary

In She Unnames Them by Ursula Le Guin, Le Guin uses the death of ego to prove the end of individuality established by Fredric Jameson. Le Guin uses Eve as an example of how in the postmodern era individuality has ended. Eve gives her name back to Adam just how the animals did with their names. By giving up her name, her ego dies because it separates her duties and responsibilities to Adam and God which provides her own entity. However, a name awards one individuality, the purpose of a name is to separate one from another and an identity. Jameson disagrees that a name possesses a unique identity, as stated in The Cultural Turn, “only a limited number of combinations are possible; the unique ones have been thought of already”(7). Jameson is referring to styles, but the lack of distinctiveness extends to names which

The animals don't experience the same ego death as Eve but still lost the sense of being a single entity. Eve breaks away for a different purpose than the animals, she is leaving to distinguish women from men but it still creating a single system that isn’t dependent on men. Eve states that names were a barrier, “when their names had stood between myself and them like a clear barrier”(526). Individualism segregates one another from nature and equality as a whole. Having a name and individuality allows for certain people to have more power or comparison but when as a whole everyone is equal there is no controlling force. By proving that the individual is “dead” it shows that equality has been achieved as a collective whole. Without individualism Eve and the animals can thrive on nature and not worry about being creative and starting new styles her main focus is figuring out the path of life without taking for granted nature and the items previously given to by Adam and