The Alternating Name: p1
So I noticed that during my writing for Feng Sohma, a girl who disguises herself a majority of the time as a male and a thing for gay guys, especially her distant cousin of some relation, Kaz Sohma, I switch between various spellings of her name and nick name. I think between my inability to read any more of my assigned class reading I'm going to examine possible reasons for my tendencies of using certain names for Feng Sohma in particular character or story interaction situations and the states of her mind. Feng is known or written in several different ways "Feng", "Fen", "Fenny", "Fin" and "Finny".
Feng Sohma is her birth name, given by grandmother, despite her father Yuudai and her mother Shuchun. The name, Feng, is often used by the people who know her, personally and some impersonally , occasionally being called by her more masculine nick name 'Finny'. Though 'Feng' means phoenix, the female aspect of the mythological pair, Dragon and Phoenix. The name Feng is ambiguous, and can be used for either boy or girl, though it has a more feminine ring to it. Most of her life revolves around 'Feng' her original being, in setting that is neither calm or chaotic, but some kind of limbo, that teeters between the two states of her mind. 'Feng' is used by her Father unlike her mother who refers her to 'it' and in turn Feng calls her "The Nettle". Perhaps the name Feng is a connection she uses to establish her actual existence of being a girl who does not understand the barrier between male and female and so she lives both. Playing on a strange playing field with an infatuation of gay men rather than straight men themselves.
She also lives day by day as a 'male student' at school, between the beliefs of those who think of her a complete male, others deny her actual sex and accept her as a 'he' and others who merely call her Feng, and do not go further than deciphering 'he/she' or 'him/her' since they do not want to bother her or themselves, while others refer to her as the Knight of the Bow, which show that she is a capable woman who chooses a meditative sport, yet highly competitive with a specific goal to shoot with power and strength, release a long slim object as a detached part of herself and penetrate through through her target. Perhaps archery in this sense is another attempt of being a male? However, meditative and calming, there is a lethal aspect to this sport and once again it teeters, this time between two Silences, meditative vitality and violent lethality. The former is has female quality, while the latter has a 'male' quality as society and history has constructed.
Feng's name occasionally diminishes to 'Fen' the 'G' of her name is dropped. Though in her full first name the 'g' is silent, the physical dropping of the 'g' may indicate a drop an actual characteristic of her or some kind of alteration in her fundamental persona. 'Fen' shows up in several instances such as when she shares her a part of the night in Kaz's room and shares a box of alcoholic chocolates with him and slowly looses her usual control to keep her distance away from him and attempts to seduce him (163).
In earlier development "Fen"is present during the house party and jealously eying Kaz and his crush Edward Durrm who she regularly refers to him as "E.D" attacking his man hood by saying each letter representing erectile dysfunction rather than "Ed" (p 13 cool . Later on Feng's mentality and her cool charisma is shattered when she returns home and she begins to tetter between the existing 'Feng' and the emerging 'Fen' when she enters her mother's house party and confronts a raging woman who wants this disowned and stray child out of her house for disrupting her business party despite the haggard and battered state Feng is in.
In around the same time period of the party, Fen is called 'Fenny' by her father, a pet name used solely by him. He tries to justify his wife's violence and all the while trying to comfort his daughter, speaking softly and attempting to play the role of a loving supporting father by calling her 'Fenny' (15 cool . Even though later it is revealed that he treasures his marital status to his wife that he is willing to send his daughter to live elsewhere, Feng calls him the 'cowardly hero or father'.
The name Fenny the derivative of Feng and Fen. It almost butchers the character that I as the creator have made her to be. Fenny seems to be the last remaining remnant of her clouded childhood. Fenny may be her father's attempt to hold onto the existence of his daughter with his wife who has disowned since Feng was in middle school. However Fenny does bring out an unusal side of Feng, a complete transformation of the tomboy who wishes to be a male to escape her family life and the restrictions and obligations of being a woman, to a loving, meek, polite daughter, free from her usual cloth adornments, such as her hat and other articles of cloths that hide her female figure (15 cool . This the only instance in which Feng Sohma shows her figure after stepping out of the shower covered only in a towel, to assure her father she had not committed suicide in the shower. Though she lacks main visual component of a woman, breasts-they being surprisingly small, the rest of her slim, figure shows of the delicate and fragile side of the 'ideal young wife or daughter' in olden times. Her age at this point is 18, though her body gives the impression she is still a young girl who is nearing puberty. This may represent the Lost Child in Feng which unfortunately to me as her creator, seems very 'Mary Jane' to me.
Fen though is used much more leniently than the other nick names and is almost use as often as 'Feng'. In the chocolate scene 'Fen' emerges as playful and girlish character, gossiping and eating sweets with her favorite person, and Kaz even uses 'Fen' as well (163). Fen also appears when she is with Kiku a fellow cross dresser, teasing with Seiya, spending cherished time with Kaz, at the Halloween party (224), watching over her teacher's child (244) and during her rage and panic over Kaz's kidnappers (250) and at the Springs for the movie marathon with Kaz(303-5). The latest for Fen, is her as a Runaway at night after hearing that her father has arranged for her leave the house and live in an apartment alone a week before New Years. Her emergence as 'Fen' makes another appearance when she makes short exchange with a male couple outside the movie theatre for their popcorn who mistake her as a young good looking teen boy and continues her night switching back and forth between Fen and Feng during her discourse with Ichigo (332)
Based on the numerous occurrences of 'Fen', I can speculate that 'Fen' is Feng's unconscious decision to pick a side of her seesawing mentality. One side is a loose, playful, and she slips out of her usual guise of being a stern charming male. The other is a raging, verbally violent, abused child seeking for the smallest inkling of 'Parental Love'. Those being the extremes there are some intermediate, such as her apathetic state, to hide herself away from the world and her problems, and interacts with people in a curt, manner. The other intermediate is the 'charming lonely boy' guise that puts on when she talks to strangers particularly to seemingly gay men and women who don't seem to mind her androgynous self or to groups of girls when she's looking for a charitable treat. It can be considered her 'meal ticket' persona.
The drop of the 'G' is her drop of portion of herself so that she able to fall one side or the other of the balance known as 'Feng' who tries to keep her life together as well balanced as possible to seem like a 'Normal' family, despite a dysfunctional family and a the family Curse that threatens to transform her into a seahorse, a modern form of the Dragon, or as the original Fruits Basket story explains a 'baby Dragon'.
