How important are names in Sweet Caress: particularly for Amory, Peggy/Dido and Xan?
Created: 05/30/16
Replies: 9
Join Date: 10/15/10
Posts: 3442
Join Date: 02/18/15
Posts: 497
The names take on great importance in this novel. The characters become androgynous through their names. We have Amory, whose father announced the birth of a son, rather than a daughter. His own name being Beverley, rather feminine. The sister Margaret is never called by her name and later changes it to Dido, neither a male or female name. The brother Alexander is called Xan and often Marjorie.
Amory herself tells us names are important, they become your label, how you see yourself. Your classification. Cleve - Cleveland?
The names are interesting in the fact that the author chose to write the story in the first person voice of a female and used the genre of memoir. Often the characters seem to slide back and forth between male and female in their character traits.
Join Date: 08/30/14
Posts: 265
I didn't notice that the names themselves were important. I noticed that Amory spent time explaining how her parents and siblings' names came about and how she was given a non-traditional name for a girl. I thought that the description for the family names was more about providing background to support how and why she was different as a child and into adulthood.
Join Date: 02/11/16
Posts: 60
I thought the names were significant although I'm not sure why.
Amory makes me think of amoral and also amorous. At different points I felt that added meaning. I'd agree with Renee that giving her a name that isn't gender specific was intentional on Boyd's part.
Dido is famous as the Queen of Carthage and she committed suicide. I'm not clear on what that means for the story and would love to hear anyone's theory on that!
And Xan seems an odd contraction for Alexander to me. Why not Alex? And why Marjorie. He is a elusive figure in many ways for me, although his story in the war was one of my favourite parts.
Join Date: 02/18/15
Posts: 497
Thinking further about names, when Amory describes her father's funeral, she states that the speaker refers to her father as "Brotherton" not Beverley. The name irritated and upset the mother. I am sure the names are of importance to the full understanding of the characters and the story.
Join Date: 07/14/12
Posts: 94
Join Date: 08/07/11
Posts: 54
Names are important in all of our lives; they define us and often predict what will happen to us and what we will do in our lives. In this story particularly Amory's name, chosen by her father because he wanted a boy, defined her life. I thought it was interesting that the author chose to tell the story through a female character but the character seemed to be androgynous. I was surprised when Charbonneau described Amory as being very thin but with generous breasts. I expected he would say that her breasts were small and boyish. Amory seemed more masculine to me than feminine, most of the time. Even her choice of drinks seemed more masculine.
Join Date: 10/25/12
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Join Date: 06/28/11
Posts: 78
I think names were used to help drive ideas in the story about how people are perceived, even before they are met. I have a 10-letter first name of Scandinavian origins. All my life, people have struggled to pronounce it, although if they look at it phonetically, it's pretty simple. I can relate to the name game because of my experience.
Join Date: 03/04/15
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