The Significance Of Surnames In The Scarlet Letter And The Great Gatsby

The Significance of Surnames Today, we have grown to take last names for granted. They’re just always there, no one really questions them. But how did humankind reach this point? What was the original significance behind surnames? This question of importance also branches between The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby, where we see the curious tales of two fascinating fellows, Roger Prynne and James Gatz, who revised their last names, causing scholars to inquire as to whether or not surnames could perhaps have some negative impact on an individual’s very existence. Altogether, there is a plethora of inquiries to make about these curious cognomens and their importance to humanity’s experience on earth, including both positive and negative …show more content…
The obvious dilemma was people still mixing up other individuals who coincidentally had the same first and last names. Unfortunately, this problem was simply one of being “just human”, and could not be rectified. Of course, the ideology had, and still has, plenty of kinks which extend far beyond simple confusion. The method used to produce bynames, especially those involving the profession a person held, led to society essentially locking its inhabitants into social classes and careers based on their cognomen, leading to both positive and negative impacts depending on what exactly each last name was implemented to represent. Someone with a surname chosen after a prestigious job may end up favored by society and having an unfair advantage in life, while one with a lower class name would most likely face more struggles socially, and even concerning their career, throughout their entire existence. That being said, although the masses are never explicitly told this, it is safe to assume that individuals with names based on lower class jobs such as Miller or Smith may have wished to gain higher level jobs to prove the stereotype behind their surname erroneous. In fact, evidence of this mentality is still present today. Moreover, younger people in today’s communities also mock each other’s last names on occasion, a continuation of the idea that our bynames can bring on a negative reputation. These negative …show more content…
While these are inquiries which can be made regarding any aspect of humanity, the topic at hand is the use of surnames in the modern world. Are they more or less important now than they were in medieval times? Must mankind place more emphasis on them? Or are we doing relatively well? It has become extremely obvious that humanity as a whole does not use surnames based on employment or other descriptions of an individual any longer. However, in other areas of life surnames are just as important, if not more than when they were originally employed in society. For example, humans still utilize bynames as a way of differentiation between people who happen to possess similar first names, a use that surnames will serve for eternity. Furthermore, the reputation behind any person’s surname can and will follow them through life, even if that reputation has nothing to do with them (i.e. having the same last name as a celebrity or an infamous criminal). At the end of the day, a straightforward answer to these questions cannot be