After our class today, I wanted to talk about the significance of BitterBlue in Graceling. I'm highly under the impression that her name is not to be taken literally, although, with her mother's name (Ashen), I could see where that would go. She's bitter and blue, because her mother is dead. And her mother is Ashen, for obvious reasons.
However, the point I was trying to make in class is that the names are all tied to the Leinard culture. I had started my point by talking about Po, and how his name, in the book, is taken from the Po tree. After a bit of research, I also found out that both Bitterblue and Ashen are also plant names. While this could just be a coincidence, I do not believe so.
If you take a look at the Leinards, they seem to be what our culture would consider as holding tribal influences. They decorate their bodies with body art, wear excessive jewelry that has meaning, and are very intune with their natural surroundings. This could very well mean that their names are also used to connect them to their natural surrounds.
I would imagine that Ashen's naming of the child as BitterBlue was a way to get her to hold onto her past culture. When the immigrants started coming to the USA, they had named their children American names, because they wanted to them to be American. However, in Graceling, it seems to me that the Leinards are the strongest of the kingdons, and then they wouldn't want to abandon their past culture.
