The Namesake Symbolism

In the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri the main character, Gogol, changes his name legally to Nikhil which symbolizes his development from youth to maturity and changes the chrysalis of the main character. Gogol, the name, represents the little boy who was confused about what he was and who he was supposed to be. When Gogol changes his name to Nikhil, he wants to become a man who is confident with who he was and took what he wanted. Gogol wanted to reinvent himself so that he no longer resembled the Indian boy with a Russian name but a conventional American teenager off at college. The symbolic change in name directs the character into a mature and sophisticated direction that focuses on Gogol’s progression into adulthood. Everything was changing in Gogol’s life in light of the fact he was moving to college where no one knew him or had any prior expectations. Gogol was attempting to reinvent himself with just the change of a name, which worked for awhile, and it would have continued to work if it would not have been for his parents’. Whenever he went home, his parents’ would refer to him as Gogol and it would pull him back into an inferior,

Nikhil represents everything that Gogol was too afraid to voice. Gogol to afraid to anger his father or disappointment his mother, dealt with it silently, brooding, until he became Nikhil and decided to be his own person. The single moment when Gogol changed his name to Nikhil, he, in my opinion, changed from a weak young boy into an independent young man. Nikhil proves his strength when his father dies: “He has a list with him of the people he has to call before the business day is over: Call rental office. Call university. Cancel utilities” (Lahiri 176). When Nikhil’s father dies, he becomes the head of the household and has to be strong for his mother and handle all of the responsibilities that his father normally would have