Slave resistance centered on claiming the power to name oneself

Evidence

As in Eden, the power of naming at Sweet Home belongs to the patriarch; in this case, in this country, he is the white patriarch. The power of naming, both oneself and one’s children, is crucial to this novel. Sethe and her mother insist on their right to name their children; Baby Suggs and Stamp Paid insist on the right to name themselves. The fact that all but two of the Sweet Home men are named Paul both highlights the deindividuation of slaves and also provides yet another ironic reference to the master’s Christian tradition. — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited, 902

Categorization

• BMF: The white-patriarch monopoly over naming as the root of unfreedom in Beloved faintly recalls Paul D’s survival of self-naming against the earlier We-extracted themes of the collective ‘we’ as illusion over particular bodies.
• XREF: connects to: Racial repression provides the terms for its own resistance; Identity construction of self and other is a political contest over power — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 838; Black fashion, hairstyle, and naming practices descend from enslaved people’s self-expression under bondage — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 170

Broader Connections

• Racial repression provides the terms for its own resistance #corroborates (0.85)
• Identity construction of self and other is a political contest over power #expands (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 838
• Black fashion, hairstyle, and naming practices descend from enslaved people’s self-expression under bondage #expands (0.75) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 170