Herein presented: a lukewarm take on the symbolism of naming the monster in Little Shop of Horrors “Audrey II.”
A brief recap of the musical is perhaps in order. Seymour works in a flower shop, has a crush on Audrey, Audrey is in an abusive relationship, Seymour discovers a strange plant after a random eclipse, names it Audrey II, the plant craves human blood, Seymour starts killing people to feed it, gets super famous, decides that killing people isn’t worth it, the plant eats person-Audrey, Seymour sacrifices himself to kill the plant. Naming the plant Audrey II is presented as “I’m in love with Audrey-the-person so I’m going to name this awesome new plant after her,” but whatever the actual reasons for it from either Seymour’s perspective or that of the writers, the symbolic implications are fascinating.
Broadly, Audrey II is a man-eating plant that has no morally-good rationale for making Seymour kill people. Sure, it tells Seymour to kill ‘bad people’ because the world has enough of those, but there is very little if any subtext in the musical that the plant wants to rid the world of only ‘bad people’. In fact, the Finale Ultimo says the plant goes on to “eat Cleveland, and Des Moines … and this theatre” [in some recordings, “and where you live”], so the ‘bad people’ thing was only a means of starting the killing spiral.
This presents the logical conclusion that since Audrey II wants to kill people willy-nilly for no reasoned end besides controlling the world, and Audrey II is named after Audrey-the-person, Audrey-the-person necessarily either shares those basic values or (for juxtaposition/foil reasons) has the opposite of those values.
First, the second. The Audreys are at best weak foils, as foils imply opposing parallels in action and/or intention. In action, Audrey II kills people without remorse and with ill intent; Audrey-the-person is responsible for death, but is passive in her killing. Yes, the Dentist and Seymour die because of Audrey-the-person, but not because of her intentions or actions but expressly because of these men’s desire to ‘have’ or ‘save’ her. Audrey-the-person does not express a desire for the Dentist to die - she is the victim of abuse and his death releases her from that, but she herself does not expressly motivate the killing. She doesn’t tell Seymour “gee, it sure would be nice if someone - hint, hint - killed my boyfriend,” Seymour looks at her situation and goes “yeah, I could probably kill that guy and things would be better for Audrey.” Then Seymour’s death, as well, is not intentional on her part. It is a reaction to the plant’s having hurt Audrey.
So when Audrey-the-person has no agency in the killings that are done around her I’m not certain that calling the Audreys foils is relevant. It is interesting to consider them as killings done on her behalf, and therefore as a commentary on how Seymour’s perceptions of Audrey-the-person’s needs motivate killings in the same way as do Audrey-the-plant’s intentional calls-to-killing. Murdering the Dentist is seen as at least equally rational as a reaction to his abuse of Audrey-the-person as it is as a reaction to the plant’s motivation. “She projected an aura of needing help, which was the same as actively asking me to murder him.” I would imagine (and hope) that it was not the explicit intention of the author to put forth that sort of idea, that it is purely coincidental. And if you don’t delve that deep, the foil argument isn’t that strong.
Then the naming decision paints the Audreys as sharing basic values. At the most innocent end of the spectrum, this is a simple coincidence, the name is meant only as a reflection of Seymour’s attraction to Audrey, I should stop overanalysing things, everything’s okay. But I think that it bears talking about, how naming the monster after the person necessarily invites comparisons of their desires. Audrey-the-person is compared to an entity that is maliciously working toward the killing off of people in general, even without portraying either as the immediate culprit of these deaths (see: the Dentist’s death as a result of his abuse of Audrey, and from Seymour’s desire to do away with him, so it’s not either Audrey’s fault, but the impetus for his death comes from the convergence of the two Audreys). What is the point, then? That women want to cause chaos and destruction, and prey on emotional vulnerability and desire to help just to achieve their horrible, gruesome ends? When Audrey II gives Seymour an excuse to kill the Dentist, it is effectively mirroring how Audrey-the-person is also giving Seymour an ‘excuse’ to kill him. Yes, it could just as well be a commentary on how Seymour’s killing the Dentist over the ‘excuse’ of this abuse is morally wrong and the situation of helplessness or pain isn’t tantamount to an incitement to violence, but at the same time the plant is named after her. These are implications that have to matter because the connotation of sharing a name is so strong, such a trope, so important to so many stories. Is it oversight? Is it commentary?
This lukewarm take comes without touching on Audrey II’s consumption of Audrey-the-person, as that is another large can of worms, nor is there commentary here about the possible ingrained sexism of the ‘I killed someone for her, but she was in pain so essentially she made me do it’ reading. I just genuinely found it interesting.