Question

What is the narrator’s intention for “unnaming” the animals? Refer to paragraphs 6 and 7 and use evidence from the text to support your answer.

Answer 1

Answer:

The narrator's intention for "unnaming" the animals is:  to become one with nature and have equality rather than showing domination over the creatures by labeling them with a name.

Explanation:

In author Ursula K. Le Guin's short story "She Unnames Them" the narrator is Eve, the first woman created by God according to the Bible. As we know, according to the book of Genesis, Adam named the animals God created to be his companions. In the story, however, Eve realizes the need to take those names back. She even gives back her own name. Her purpose for doing that is to free herself and the animals of the labels that distinguish them. By remaining unnamed, they become the same. There is nothing separating their existence and sense of self any longer:

They seemed far closer than when their names had stood between myself and them like a clear barrier: so close that my fear of them and their fear of me became one same fear. And the attraction that many of us felt, the desire to feel or rub or caress one another’s scales or skin or feathers or fur, taste one another’s blood or flesh, keep one another warm -- that attraction was now all one with the fear, and the hunter could not be told from the hunted, nor the eater from the food.