The Three Wise Men, Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar: Choosing names

Q: It's Sami again with another question. Could you tell me why the characters in the first half of your novel have no names?

A: Are you familiar with the fairytale the three little pigs? Tell me the names of the three pigs. See? Or the princess in Rapunzel.

Names are frequently left out in fairytales. Names are rare in parables and fables. Tell me the name of the prodigal son. The Good Samaritan, what is his name? The three wise men. I know, I know, popular tradition has them down as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar . . .

But mostly names are an afterthought in narratives that teach a lesson or whose stories are more important than the characters who act out the parts. There are notable exceptions of course. Disney gives us the names of the seven dwarfs, but the original versions did not. We know the names of Santa's Reindeer (if we can remember the song), but only Rudolph with his red nose stands out.

And we know the names of the twelve disciples--"The first Simon who is called Peter; Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee; John his brother . . ." and so on, but what does it add to the narrative?

Sure it makes them seem more real as actual people, and this is the way it works in real life--people have names. But I would argue that because of the distraction caused by the names, there may be less focus on the important lessons.

Later on in the list another James appears and a second Simon. In some versions the name "Judas" appears twice in the list.

For some of us the lesson cannot be seen at all. We get too caught up in the minutiae of biography.

Whose son was who? Where did he live? In the desert and was considered a madman? Oh, that was a different John. But I thought you said in another scripture that he was a fisherman. Oh, only his brother was a fisherman. So which Peter was the one that Jesus called the rock? And so on and so forth.

In the prodigal son, a fairly efficient parable, the lesson is the focus, not the names, but the relation between the two sons. Elder son and younger. Or a character's function, Father, Servant, Fatted calf. You see my point.

To demonstrate narrative structure in my creative class, I retell the tale of the two monks. Their names by the way were "Tanzan" and "Ekido," but to teach the lesson I call them "the first monk" and "the second monk." You may remember the story:

Two monks were on their way to a monastery when they passed through a village where everything was wet and muddy from the recent rains. The first monk saw a woman attempting to cross the flooded road and he passed her by.

The second monk saw the same woman and he lifted her up and set her down on the other side of the road.

At the end of the day when the two had reached the monastery, the first monk could not take it anymore, and he turned to the second monk angrily and said, "You know that we have taken an oath never to touch a woman, especially one as beautiful as that one you touched today."

And the second monk said to the first, "I left her at the water. Are you still carrying her?"

Now tell the story again with the names "Tanzan" and "Ekido" inserted. In which is the LESSON easier to understand? I think the answer is the one without names.

"Every Boy Should Have a Man" begins as a fable, turns into a fairytale, becomes scripture, and ends as a traditional prose narrative with Mikel the son of Mike on that bus ride to his father's mansion. There are elements of each of the other parts within each part, of course, so that in the fable section there is a traditional prose narrative told by the mother.

By the way did you notice how that phrase "Mikel the son of Mike on that bus ride to his father's mansion" sounds suspiciously like the way the King James Bible sounds? That happens many times in the book.

Enjoy these additional "cheats," Sami. Good luck with your research paper. Email me a copy of it when it's completed. I am honored to be worthy of research.

Thanks,

Preston