Lamentations

Lamentations is the main character of the novel. Throughout the majority of the novel, the narrator refers to Lamentations simply as “the girl” (5). This guide refers to her character as Lamentations throughout, for the sake of clarity. In Chapter 9, the narrator reveals that “In the poorhouse, she had been given the name Lamentations to remember the stain of her sin upon her, with her family name being Callat, so to wear upon her own neck for her life the profession of whore that her mother had almost certainly known” (109). For these reasons, Lamentations feels trapped by her own name. Although she has been given many other names, including “Girl, Wench, Zed,” “none of them [have] ever felt fully hers” (166). Because she is on her own and thus nominally free in the narrative present, Lamentations longs to rename herself. However, because she feels alienated from the person she has...