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Vivien Mary D. Vecina

Marie Rose Arong, PhD

Literature 3 - Literature, Society, and the Individual

17 June 2018

Why Apples Are Important

Basing from the title, you probably think apples are that important. Well maybe you do.

Maybe you don’t. But it’s not because it’s expensive in the supermarket—if Adam was a

capitalist he would have sold it at a very expensive price. After all, it did cost him a lot. But this

essay is not about Adam. No, this is about Eve and how she was mostly blamed for eating it. It

probably would sound unfair, after all it is. Why? It’s because Eve’s the girl and that is how it

goes in a patriarchal world. If Newton was a girl we wouldn’t be talking about the laws of

motion. We would be focusing on the apple that hit her. After all, apples brought knowledge to

our world both on the biblical and the scientific sense.

But in this essay, apples are the symbol of feminism. It symbolizes how Adam and Eve

should be equally punished. And that also goes for the snake too. When you hear the word

feminism, the first thing that might come to your mind is women being angry. Like

Chamamanda, my knowledge of feminism was at first limited. I didn’t know much and

understood it as a movement made by “angry women” whose hatred for men run so deeply they

want to topple them down, replace them and rule over to become the superior race. And never

have I been wrong and stand corrected in my life until I entered college.
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Years ago had I read this story of Le Guin, I wouldn’t have found anything of

importance. It would just be another creative short story with the twist of Adam and Eve

adaptation. Like Adam and the friend from Chamamanda’s story, I wouldn’t also found anything

wrong with our society or the current situation there is aside from the usual poverty,

unemployment, the lack of access to education and basically other economic and social issues

thereof. But it’s more than just that. Feminism, isn’t about trying to eradicate men or to put

women as the superior race. Feminism is simply about equality of both sexes. Feminism, by its

name, to put emphasis on women empowerment and other gender to be seen not as inferior but to

be recognized.

Le Guin’s She Unnames Them tackles not just about how the creation story, as the

product of our patriarchal society, but how this embodiment of roles based on our gender—men

as the superior, women in second, and then others as inferior—is deeply entrenched to our

psyche and it affects how we see and act accordingly. The act of unnaming them is a symbolism

of how this form of power relations is a barrier identity that further emphasizes the differences of

classes and the marginalization of women and other sectors.

This figurative style of the author lets us see how the act of unnaming names is a

liberation from the restriction that are put on to our agency as a human being. The part of the

story where Eve finally overcomes her anxiety to face Adam is a very symbolic act for me. It

goes to show that women and other gender regardless of class and sex shouldn’t be afraid to

voice out what we think is right and to never allow ourselves as a human being to be restricted or
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conformed. That like this version of Eve, we should learn to eventually speak up and stand up for

ourselves and shouldn’t let ourselves be blamed for eating just one damn apple.