Leaving Characters Unnamed

The short story we most recently read in English class to discuss characterization had a very unique feature: only one person's name was ever mentioned, and they weren't involved in the plot.

The story centers around a granddaughter who has recently come to live with her mother's mother, who is only ever called "granny" or "the grandmother". The granddaughter doesn't want to live there on a farm, and especially hates doing work, so she runs away. The grandmother goes to get her, finds her on the back of some biker's motorcycle, and they get chased by these two guys with a gun (who also never get named).

The person who is named is the mother, the link between the granddaughter and the grandmother (her name is Sylvie). They visit her grave at one point during the story, and reflect a little bit on her and what she meant to them. I think it was a very interesting idea to do this, because in most stories the important characters would always have a name.

Some other books employ this strategy, but usually at least some characters get named. This strategy can be used to help readers identify with the character or to make them representative of anyone in a similar situation.

Something further I would like to know is why Sylvie was the only character named; she seems less important than the grandmother or the granddaughter. We haven't discussed the book in class yet, so hopefully we'll go over it.

That's really the only thing I had to talk about today, so have a nice day everybody! :)