The story starts off by saying how most of the animals accept this process with no contest. The first animal that they discuss which is against this process are the yaks. The main reason is that there is little variation in their name from one culture to another, which they like, so they do not mind the general name. But the council of women decides that the name is too redundant and takes it away.
Next it talks about the domestic animals. In this part, there is no argument among the animals about giving up their names. The horses say that they do not even care what they are called. In this part it references Jonathan Swifts Gulliver's Travels, when it says Swift tried to name them in their native tongue, in which he named them Houyhnhnms.
It then goes on to talk about the process that went on with the pets. Cats evidently denied any name but the one that they gave to themselves, so they had no issue with the unnaming process. Other pets, however, did. These pets include dogs and many types of birds. They had originally believed that they were losing any name that was given to them, but when they found out that it was just their general name, like dog or parrot, they willingly let go. The names they were not willing to let go was that of Polly or Rover.
All insects and fish of the sea were rid of their names quickly, so there is not much to write of them.
In the paragraph after the unnaming process, the perspective switches to single person. At first it is not very evident who it is, but that it is most likely a woman. She discusses her new feelings towards the creatures now that they had no name. She discusses how she now feels much closer to the animals, and yet fears them all because it is no longer easily determined what is the hunter and what is the hunted. She said that this was the reason that she did this, and so does not entirely hate it.
She then goes to her husband, Adam, and gives back to him what she says was his and his father's. He dismissively tells her to put aside, and so she is not worried anymore about her initial fear of him being angry. Throughout the rest of the story she talks with Adam, but he seems to distracted to pay her much mind. She says by to him, and he does not pay much mind, and so leaves with no stress.
At the end of the story it is evident that it is a play on the book Genesis in the Bible. As the woman is married to Adam, it shows that she is most likely Eve, the woman who married to Adam in the Bible. Eve unravels what Adam had done in the Bible by taking away the names that he had given to them, partially to try to get his attention. It is also seen, though, how women are more attune with nature when Eve discusses her new feelings towards the animals, which was the other reason for unnaming them.
Looking at this through a feminist's eyes now, the story is about women undoing what man did. In the naming process that man took, the names were generally man centered, but the feminist goal is for gender-neutral language, which can be easily achieved if there was no name in the first place.
There also many other ways to take this story, but these are the ones that I saw most evidently in this story. Le Guin obviously showed her previously mentioned feminist ideals in this story, which probably drove her to write it.
Picture Source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennpelly/5425786446/in/photostream
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