The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is a bildungsroman that involves an array of themes and related symbols. The story centers on our protagonist, Gogol Ganguli, the son of Ashima Ganguli and Ashoke Ganguli, both of which are immigrants from Bengal. The story is set throughout the span of Gogol’s life, where he struggles to accept the name he was given. He rejected his good name in school and changed his legal name before going off to college. In the end, after learning the significance of his name, he
The Secret of Identity In the book “The Namesake” Jhumpa Lahiri uses the psychoanalytical lens to show the reader that a western culture society, can challenge an Asian individual’s cultural identity in a negative manner. This is shown through Ashima, and Gogol, the conflicts between Gogol and society, and the technique of foreshadowing and flashback. Firstly, Gogol and Ashima start to confront society as Ashima starts to avoid growing accustomed to the new world, she has “the oldest address book
The Namesake, written by Jhumpa Lahira, a famous Indian writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for her story collection Interpreter of Maladies, brilliantly illustrates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations. In this novel, the main characters Ashima and her husband, Ashoke, were first generation immigrants in the United States from India. The whole story begins with Ashima's pregnancy and her nostalgia of her hometown, and a sense of melancholy revealed from the first chapter
The Namesake explores the life of the Ganguli family across two generations and more than three decades, set predominantly in the United States. Written in third person, it gives us a wonderfully intimate and knowing family portrait. Lahiri weaves together a variety of themes; the immigrant experience and the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, death and most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. The novel pits the loneliness of the immigrant generation in a foreign land
The title The Namesake mirrors the struggle of Gogol Ganguli, child of Ashoke and Ashima, Indian foreigners to the U.S.A. to get personality in the way of life where he is conceived and raised with his strange name. Names do make them mean in India. A considerable measure of practice is done when a youngster is named in India. An Indian tyke for the most part conveys two names, a pet name and an official one. Pet names are for the family and neighbours and colleagues. They convey or may not convey
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
in rather than to stick to his own. When the Ganguli family movies to America, they started to do as Americans did. Some of their actions would not be acceptable in their culture. They conformed to some of the American traditions. Throughout The Namesake, after Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli move to America, they experience the need to conform as they transition into their
struggle of balancing the two worlds. In America, most people have table manners and eat with a spoon, fork, and or knife. While in India, food is mostly eaten with your bare hands. The hardships to fit in America as an immigrant are possessed in The Namesake written by Jhumpa Lahiri. Gogol, the main character, struggles to uphold the traditions his parents expect him to follow. “Its not the type of thing Bengali wives do- a husband’s name is something intimate and therefore unspoken, cleverly patched
Gogol and Sonia’s hybridization into the American culture Introduction Jhumpa Lahiri's novel “The Namesake” is an example of immigrant narrative, which deals with the theme of immigration and acculturation. The novel discusses the traditional immigration topics of exile and its discontents, intergenerational differences, losses and acquisitions of the immigrants and their children in pursuit of the American dream. However, the novel's theme is not framed by the concept “American dream” only - a
Introduction “The Namesake” begins with a young Ashok back in Calcutta to meet his bride to be for the first time. This is an arranged marriage so he has no choice but to marry his future bride, Ashima. They marry in Calcutta and even though still strangers, Ashima moves with him to New York. Life in America for Ashima is so foreign and she is left alone while Ashok goes to work. Ashima is stranded in an alien world where everyday challenges such as making a meal or doing laundry can be quite overwhelming
“Home is where the heart is,” an old proverb affirms. But this did not always ring true in the life of Gogol Ganguli. In The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol was the son of Bengali immigrants who resided in the Northeastern United States. Gogol, many times, struggled with his identity, and one of the major parts of identity is the place one lives. Throughout Gogol’s life, he lived in several different houses and places, and felt differently about each one, fitting into some and feeling strange
The Namesake is a documentary of the ongoing quest of identity of the immigrants.. Diasporas often live in one country as community but yearn to reconnect across time and space to their origin. Culturally they experience fragmentation, marginalization and displacement in their migrated countries. There is a threat to their ethnic and cultural identity and often they are victims of mockery and domination. Thus, the diaspora are stuck in their perpetual dilemma of having lost their sense of belonging
Different angles and difficulties of movement and osmosis are investigated in The Namesake. Throughout the novel, Ashima (the mother) and Ashoke (the father) attempt to make their kids Bengali while the brother and the sister, Gogol and Sonia, demand that they are Americans. The conflicts must do with everything from giving the youngsters their names, to regardless of whether they ought to make intermittent visits to India. In spite of the fact that the parents wish that their youngsters would hold
Gogol constantly struggles with his identity as a blend of both Bengali and American cultures, he also struggles to determine his home. It seems that he never truly feels at home, despite the great diversity among the places in which he lives. In The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri shows that one’s home and one’s identity are interconnected; consequently, Gogol’s struggles throughout the novel to determine his identity parallel his difficulty defining a home. One home in which Gogol lives is that of his girlfriend
In the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri mentions a short story named “The Overcoat” written by Nikolai Gogol numerous times. This “mentioning” is also known as an “allusion.” The Namesake is about the Ganguli family and their transformation to an American family. Gogol Ganguli is the character that is closely related to “The Overcoat” which is about the life and also the death of a man by the name Akakiy Akakievitch. Besides the fact that is is named in The Namesake, “The Overcoat” can be related
generations who were born elsewhere than their parent’s homeland. Throughout The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol Ganguli struggles between his two identities of being both Bengali-Indian and American. He attempts to escape the confinement of societal standards and pursue the American identity by redefining himself. In addition, each character is challenged by their surroundings and ability to adapt to change. Through The Namesake, we learn the importance of how societal standards can shape someone and the
Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise’s West Side Story (USA, 1961), a classic American film, and Mira Nair’s The Namesake (USA, 2006), a more contemporary film, both tell the story of young adults seeking out the American Dream. In both West Side Story and The Namesake, we see young people taking chances at love, while living out their lives and the American Dream. We experience the challenges that come with interracial relationships and the cultural influences that sadly put an end to the relationships
Many people say home is where the heart is, but in Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake the house on Pemberton Road is a constant reminder of Gogol’s traditional Bengali lifestyle that he tries to avoid by leaving home. The house on Pemberton Road is not only where Gogol, the novel’s central character, grew up in, but is also a big reason why he tries to turn away from his Bengali traditions and become more American. While he was growing up he dreaded the weekly Bengali family dinners. and just wanted
Reflection of Culture in Namesake Movie Life becomes hard and miserable when a person feels they have lost their sense of identity of his culture. The movie is a reflection of culture and full of values. Culture is highly reflected in the movie The Namesake. Reflection of culture in the movie can be seen when the lead protagonist discovers that the lead actor of two cultures and tries to bring them into one. Gogol, the American Indian whose parents are migrants in the US from India is worried how
Set over three decades, The Namesake describes the lives of the Ganguli family as they live in a country that challenges their culture and values. The family is separated by a generation gap; Ashoke and Ashima were born and raised to traditional families in Calcutta, but their move to the United States means that their children grow up adopting very different lifestyles. As the years pass, their firstborn, Gogol, displays a strong disapproval of his identity and especially his name, instead embracing