Character Names in The Mezzanine
There aren’t a lot of characters in The Mezzanine , but the ones that do exist are described in very different ways, right down to the way they are referred to. I thought that the way Baker chooses to write each character’s name was really interesting and it influenced my view of the character and their personality. The best example of this is the narrator’s name. For over half the book, we have no idea what it is and this made me see the narrator less as a single individual and more as a type of person. The narrator’s lack of a name made it almost as though the narrator could be any person working in a similar setting, which made me see his experiences as universal rather than as the unique experiences of one particular person. However, as the book goes on, we get more personal and unique stories from the narrator. Although the overall kinds of experiences he has are still very universal, we also get glimpses into more unique aspects of his life, such as his father’s love for ties. Fi...