The shaping of narrative identity through the act of naming

In projecting narrative identity against the larger background of 19th century English literature, this book re-evaluates some Victorian novels and proposes a model of identity construction in which the prism-like mind creates conceptual rainbows, ¿the maze¿ stands for the intricate realities reflected by Victorian society, ¿the narrative edifice¿ of participants, plot and text gets shaped through naming acts, whereas the Dickensian and Eliotesque names turn from mere cultural identifiers and social classifiers into ¿metaphors for the self¿ (Melnyk, 2003).