Inception: Names within Names May Offer Clues

Article first published as Inception: The Names Within Names May Offer Clues on Technorati.

In it’s second week, Inception appears to be yet another successful blockbuster movie for director Christopher Nolan. Peter Travers of the Rolling Stones describes Inception as “James Bond meets the Matrix.”

However mind bending the plot might be, there’s a lot of speculation about what the movie really means. Is it about dream thieves, or is it more of an allegory about movies in general? Is the movie filmed from the main character’s perspective of reality or was he in a dream himself?

I’ve read a few sites analyzing the movie, but what I’ve found most fascinating have been comments and other posts discussing the names in the movie.

The basic plot of the movie revolves around how the main characters can enter other people’s dreams and extract important information. Extraction can be tricky business because the line between dreams and reality can tend to blur. The dream team all have their own totems to help them make that distinction; a token that lets them know whether they’re in a dream or not. The totem is supposed to be the dream extractor’s tether to reality.

Names can mean a lot and this movie has it’s fair share of intriguing names. In fact, I wonder if the names in this movie serve as a sort of a totem for the viewer, tethering us to what is real and what is imagined. Let’s take a look at some of the character names in this movie:

Dom Cobb is the main character. He is the head dream thief. Or is he? Some speculate he may be caught in a web of dreams himself which makes his name all the more interesting.  The character is mainly referred to as “Cobb” and a cob is another word for a spider, but it can also mean a conspicuous person. Both meanings are relevant here.

Mal is the main character’s (Cobb’s) wife. However, she also plays the role of Cobb’s subconscious (it’s complicated – you need to see to movie to understand this). Whatever her full name might be, she is referred to as Mal. Latin is the foundation for all the romance languages and in Latin, “mal” means bad.

Eames plays the role of “forger” in the dream extraction team. The movie discusses the importance of dream architects and a famous architect/designer couple was Charles and Ray Eames. It’s a stretch to connect this character’s name with these iconic design figures, but it’s still worth mentioning.

Ariadne is brought into the team as the role of architect. She designs the dream’s set and only she knows the crooks and crannies of its landscape. Interestingly enough, Ariadne is a famous character in Greek mythology. She is the daughter of King Minos and she aids a young Theseus through a complex labyrinth. The character Ariadne plays a similar role in Inception, guiding Cobb through the tangled mess of his subconscious.

Yusef is the dream alchemist, creating the powerful chemicals that allow the characters to drift safely into their dream status. Interestingly enough, the Muslim religion’s Yusef correlates to the Christian religion’s Joseph, a character who is able to interpret dreams.

Fischer is basically the victim in this plot. He’s the character the dream “thieves” are targeting. Except in this situation they’re not trying to steal, they’re trying to impregnate him with an idea. The character’s full name is Robert Fischer. The Adriana character creates a dream totem that is a chess piece, which does make one wonder if there’s any connection between this character’s name and the infamous chess player, Bobby Fischer.

The ending of this movie is left to the interpretation of the viewer, but after thinking about it awhile, so is a lot of the rest of the movie, including the character names.

Sources:

1. Wired: The Neurosciences of Inception
2. Never Wake Up: The Meaning and Secret of Inception
3. Inception: The Meaning Behind Character Names