The Name Game

I'm going to preface this post with the statement: "I hope I am writing about what I am supposed to be writing about."In Spivak's essay, a teenie-weenie bit of emphasis was put on Antoinette's name change (Raiskin 242). I'm rolling with it.

"'Don't laugh like that, Bertha.'My name is not Bertha; why do you call me Bertha?' 'Because it is a name I am particularly fond of. I think of you as Bertha.'" (Rainskin 81). Okay, so here we are, newly married couple, neither of them hardly know each other, why the heck is Rochester calling Antoinette, the girl we know and love, "Bertha?" For one, the name sounds like it belongs to a cow, or at least a very large animal. Secondly, it makes me wonder if he had ever made love to a woman named Bertha previous to his marriage to Antoinette, and if he had then he indeed had slipped up somehow and called her by that strange woman's name by mistake while they wrestled between the sheets and he just lied and said he merely liked the name Bertha. (*breathing*) I mean has that ever happened to any of you no not me never. . . .

But seriously. Even Spivak says it, "Rhys suggests that so intimate a thing as personal and human identity might be determined by the politics of imperialism. Antoinette, as a white Creole child growing up at the same time of emancipation in Jamaica, is caught between the English imperialist and the black native" (Rainskin 242). Well, yeah. What he is basically saying is that he doesn't want her as she is- he wants her as he imagines she should be.Antoinette, forget where you came from, forget those who tainted your past with their black fingerprints. You are English, I hereby Christian you, "Bertha." (*Cough-cow-cough*).

Later in this same scene, Rochester actually croons, "'Of course, on this of all nights, you must be Bertha.'" and she gives in and replies, "'As you wish'" (Rainskin 82). Okay, enough already with the sick role play. Really, you keep writing this crap and kids across the country will be calling each other Bertha just to get all hot and heavy. Gross.

This is the exact same thing we talked about with Things Fall Apart, only now it's in a different country and it's happening to one woman rather than an entire race of people. Identity crisis. It sucks. To all young, impressionable lovers out there, do not let your partner render you powerless in this situation- remember your name.