• Other essays and articles related to this topic can be found in the Literature Archives at ArticleMyriad •

 

Don Delillo implies that the self is autonomous by focusing and scattering throughout The Names the idea of the self as an entity that can exist alone in the human mind, away from the routines and limitations of “Everydayness” that are commonly found for James in language, in politics, in life. Through this concentration in The Names, Delillo implies that language and politics are part of a social identity; although we use these forces to build up self-importance and self-delusion, they are directed more towards group identity than individual identity. It’s an individual identity that James seeks–who he is in the here-and-now sense.

Through his environment–people, places, and objects—the main character in The Names by Don Delillo, James realizes that both language and politics are part of routines that in the end speak for how we act as a group but do not say much for one’s individual state of mind. James learns that language teaches us to lie to ourselves–for instance, James at one point lies to the concierge of a hotel by telling him he’s going to certain places, but these places are only place-names he can properly pronounce in a foreign language — and when tied with politics, the two forces allow the mind to regress to self-delusion and hide behind human fears.

In Delillo’s novel, “America is the myth” (114). Instead of constructing an identity for James, politics keeps him away from the realm of individuality because everywhere he goes, he is reminded that he is an American because he is traveling to parts of the world where Americans are judged based on their government. From people like Andreas, he sees that Americans have the need to feel self-important–“it’s only in a crisis that Americans see other people” and even then it “has to be an American crisis…look this is Iran, this is Iraq. Let us pronounce the word correctly…the Americans choose strategy over principle every time and yet keep believing in their own innocence.” and lie to themselves (58). From living abroad, he notes that “[e]veryone is there…Not just Americans. They’re all there. But the others lack a certain mythical quality that terrorists find attractive,” and it’s this myth of America created by others that serves to “embody recurring [routine] themes that people can use to comfort themselves, justify themselves” (114). James suggests that all groups of people are guilty of the same things: self-delusion, self-importance, and the lies, the fiction, we tell ourselves–everyone gives and takes blame. James’s environment or his constant change in environment allows him to progressively understand that this is all politics and language molded together to make him part of a common identity.

The stones of the past that Owen found from a dig use language primarily for community dealings; the knowledge of an everyday language used in the past reveals nothing about the constructs of the individual self–“The stones spoke,” Owen says, “what the stones say, after all, is often routine stuff. Inventories, land sale contracts, grain payments, records of commodities, so many cows, so many sheep…it seems to be the case that the first writing was motivated by a desire to keep accounts” (35). Later in the novel, he realizes that “language [as Mrs. Helen taught it] existed mainly as a medium of politeness between people” and once again have very little to say about the individual (250). “Do people make things to define the boundaries to the self?” James asks and then affirms that “objects are the limits we desperately need” (133). Language, objects that possess language, guns used to kill people (justified by “revenge” and war or “strategy” ) are all things that people use to restrain ourselves from reaching our individual selves (202).

Language and politics, unlike the individuality of the human mind where anything can be expressed, can not stand alone; it needs people to set its limitations, it needs rules. It was this “setting of limits that [James] thought he needed” in the beginning (192). If you think about the rules of conversation in society, you’ll find that a majority of the time, depending on whom you’re speaking to, there are things you can and can not say because they may be socially inappropriate or politically incorrect, there are parts of ourselves that we are simply not allowed to reveal. The same can be said for the rules of violence–one needs revenge, which is like a routine ritual, “like a religious experience,” but without the “revenge motive…the violent act is sickly” and mad (202).