The Unworthy

Throughout The Unworthy, the motif of naming is an important part of articulating the role of language in constructing identity and humanity. One night in their tree, Lucía tells the narrator that every “element of nature” has “a secret name” (131). Knowing these names “reveals the true world to you” (131). This suggests how language shapes reality and how naming is used at the Sacred Sisterhood to control and manipulate.

At the House of the Sacred Sisterhood, everything has a designated, formal name. The unworthy worship in the Chapel of Ascension, are punished with isolation in the Tower of Silence, and bathe in water from the Creek of Madness. They strive to shed the title of unworthy and become Chosen or Enlightened. These proper nouns give structure and legitimacy to the world of the Sisterhood.

Certain things, on the other hand, are conspicuously unnamed. The unworthy, for example, are not granted a proper noun like the Chosen, Enlightened, or the Superior Sister, indicating their low status in the Sisterhood. The women have to relinquish their names when they join the Sisterhood; they are assigned a new name, allowing themselves to be remade in the cult’s image.