Naming as Human Agency in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens

Abstract

In Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s 1990 comic novel Good Omens, names act as important signifiers of role and function; the act of naming can be an expression of power so strong and significant that it can literally shape reality. Here, I propose a reading of Good Omens that explores human agency through the process of naming. Focusing on the character of Adam Young, who is himself named after the first human described in Genesis, I examine how Good Omens intersects with the cultural inheritance of the Bible, and specifically with literary and popular cultural engagements with Genesis and Revelation. Approaching the novel primarily via its literary and cinematic intertexts, I position Adam Young as a literary construct who in turn names and shapes other beings out of material from his own mental library. Like his namesake, in Genesis to whom God delegated the naming of the animals, I consider how the Adam of Good Omens uses naming to define the world around him and in doing so, asserts his humanity over his supernatural origins.

Keywords

• terry pratchett
• neil gaiman
• good omens
• naming
• genesis
• revelation
• adam
• creation
• antichrist
• anthropomorphism
• apocalypse