Character names in Red Mars

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Introduction

In the course of the project "Literature about the Future" we talked about the novel "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson. We were asked to concern ourselves with creative tasks in selected groups for five weeks. For this reason we had a closer look on telling names in "Red Mars". While reading the novel we got the impression that most of the characters fulfilled those features that were predestined by their names. This became obvious when we came across the name "Duval". Fact is that it is an abbrevation for the French expression "Duc du Vallon" which means "leader of the valley". After talking about this person in detail it became clear that the meaning of his name corresponded with his behaviour. From this point, we started investigating the other characters and came to the conclusion that all of them adopted a role that is determined by the significance of their names. To illustrate our statement, we will give some examples as a proof. Furthermore, we want to direct the readerīs attention and arouse his curiosity by investigating further on telling names.

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