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In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, the protagonist, Gogol, struggles with his cultural identity. He is an American-born Bengali struggling to define himself. He wants to fit into the typical American-lifestyle, a lifestyle his parents do not understand. This causes him tension through his adolescence and adult life, he has trouble finding a balance between America and Bengali culture. This is exemplified with his romantic relationships. These relationships directly reflect where he is in his life, what he is going through and his relationship with his parents. Each woman indicates a particular moment in time where he is trying to figure out his cultural identity. Ruth represents an initial break away from Bengali culture; Maxine represents …show more content…
He avoids telling them for as long as he can, even if it keeps him from seeing Ruth “But such a trip would require telling his parents about Ruth, something he has no desire to do” (Lahiri 115). To him, his parents represent Bengali culture, something he is not sure he wants to be a part of. He tries to live entirely without their opinion, driving them out of his personal life almost entirely. Although he is trying to separate himself from Bengali culture, he still remains only a few hours away from home, still visits every other weekend. At the end of the day, Gogol is still connected to his home and culture in a way Ruth is not. Ruth seeks adventure in Europe choosing to study abroad in Oxford, London. “Instead of coming back from Oxford after those twelve weeks, she’d stayed on to do a summer course” (Lahiri 119). In fact Ruth wants to go back to England for graduate school, something Gogol has no real interest in doing. His connection, even if subconscious ends up being the driving force in Ruth and Gogol’s break up. He fails to learn from his mistakes with Ruth, however, and the next girl he dates is even more different than
...o assimilate into the society by entering school with a more acceptable name, but Gogol refuses. The acceptance of the society has pressured him to change his name in college, and to hide Gogol from the society. Till the day Gogol understands the reason why his father chose to name him Gogol instead of an Indian or American name, Gogol experienced a lot of changes, as a second generation American immigrant. Gogol has been assimilated to different culture than he ethnically is. At the end, through family, Gogol has come back to his roots. Gogol was not given an Indian name from his Indian family or an American name as he was born in America, to emphasize an individual try to assimilate into a different culture, but in the end, he is still bonded to his roots as the person he ethnically is.
Gogol basically grows up his whole life not feeling comfortable with his identity and who he is. Gogol doesn't feel like he belongs in his parents Bengali family, and he somewhat feels like he is living in between cultures sometimes. Growing up in America has made him feel like an outsider because his parents were always doing things in their culture. Throughout the book Gogol makes great efforts to find out who he really is and he does that by moving away from home. Gogol’s definition of home changes whether it's by getting a new girlfriend or moving to a new place he's not familiar with.
Throughout The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri cultural differences are seen. They are closely related to names and identity. Your identity is shown through your name and sometimes people may not be able to see themselves as their name shows them. Many cultures think certain names are ordinary but they also see names that are not ordinary or weird in some way. Throughout the book, you see the distaste Gogol has for his name. He does not like it and goes to great lengths to change it, although still maintaining part of his Bengali and Russian roots. Also seen is the distaste for his culture not wanting to keep in touch with the Bengali language trying to assimilate to American culture, which can be seen throughout the novel as conflicting with one another.
“Our own culture is often hidden from us, and we frequently describe it as “the way things are.”” People do not even realize their own cultural identity, so then how do people know what shapes it? A person’s identity is shaped by cultural experiences that make them into the person they are today. Some of these experiences include someone’s parents, the media, and where they grew up.
Gogol is caught between two opposite forces, of alienation and integration. The feeling of alienation in him is due to his strong desire to merge with the life of the adopted land, and his inability to do so for his cultural past, because of his family’s clinging to their tradition and custom. He turns into a rebel due to clash between generations over their attitudes, approaches to the way of life and outlook of the host country. This creates a sordid conflict between him and his parents and aggravates, here we see the views of Bhabha from his book
I am the child of a white man and a Navajo (Diné) woman. Gogol’s parents have tried to force their cultural values upon him since birth, but I would have been lucky if my family had tried to celebrate my A 'wee Chi 'deedloh, my first laugh ceremony. Gogol lives in a world where his family seems to have to do everything possible to scrape together the means to practice their Bengali culture. This suggests that to be the child of first-generation immigrants is to substitute many traditions and ceremonies into more Americanized, less culturally-authentic renditions of themselves, for the only way to be truly authentic is to practice the culture in the land of origin or, in Gogol’s case, India.
Throughout the novel, Ashima and Gogol are at opposite perspectives of their view of “home”. In the beginning, while Ashima is focused on family and prefers to remain close to her Bengali culture, Gogol’s only wish is to become independent and veer away from his Bengali culture. These desires of independency and having a traditional close-knit family direct Ashima and Gogol’s decisions and views of home. Whereas Ashima is focused on family, Gogol continues in his attempt to become fully independent and escape from his home and the clutches of his insistent, traditional parents. After living in New Haven for a few years, Gogol decides to move to New York. His reasons for moving to New York are mainly because...
...ds them, in accents they are accustomed not to trust” (Lahiri 108). This too is a form of double-consciousness as both Ashoke and Ashima are aware of the loss of culture, of their own identity in their children as their children shun India and by extension Bengali culture, and no longer sound like the people they miss and love back in Calcutta. It is extremely sad, because in order to make a better life for themselves and for their family they came to America, but because of the search for opportunity, they also lost their sense of identity in their children even though they tried their hardest to create a kind of Bengali community in America as well. Quietly, unlike Dre, Ashoke, more than Ashima comes to understand that he cannot push his culture upon his children, especially Gogol, and instead allows Gogol to navigate being Bengali and being American, for himself.
This research study focuses at negotiating the shifting identities of immigrants and their traumas in postcolonial literature with reference to Lahiri’s fiction. The suffering of every immigrant in achieving a shelter and identity in a foreign land often leads to loss of identity. The qualms, agitation and nervousness of immigrants often increase the issues of identity, and immigrants often feel alienated in the midst of exotic land, they even start to think about achieving new identities. Stuart Hall (1987) a famous cultural theorist discusses the issues of cultural identity and migration as he says “Migration is a one way trip. There is no “home” to go back to”. Change in the place and ambience totally change the circumstances in the lives of immigrants in Lahiri’s fiction, they often try to cling to their own cultural identity and costumes. But the cultural effect is often so strong that it deeply affects the identity of immigrants and they ultimately try to change their identities. Immigrants make an absurd attempt to get mingled in the culture of foreign country. Hall discusses “Cultural identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference” (235).
Throughout the novel Gogol begins to feel more compelled to his Bengali life. Towards the end of the book Gogol becomes more acquainted to his Bengali life and his family, slowly slipping away from the American identity that was once present to him. Truly inside he has a background of Bengali culture there for him when he needs it. As for Gogol’s American identity as Nikhil, something seen as fake to him, was only an experience. It was an experience Gogol, a Bengali child, had grown up to live.
Many will ask what role does identity and culture play in the society? As a matter of fact, culture is that one factor that speaks to us about our origin. According to Lahiri “For my parent, home was not our house at Rhode Island, but Calcutta, where they were raised. I was aware that the things they lived for, the Nazrul songs they listened to on the real to real, the family they missed, the cloths my mother wore that were not available in any store in any mall” (pg 612). On this quote, Lahiri tries to explain the way of living her parents left behind before moving to America in search for better lives, her parents found themselves in a strange new environment that necessarily doesn’t collaborate with their past cultural values, but they coped with it and the sense of origin from which they were raised still follows
Who am I; my beliefs, values, morals, and views on society have assisted in molding me into the person that I am considered to be today. I was raced with specifics values, traditions, and norms. Being raised in a small town made being socially aware very easy. I was raised under the southern Baptist Christian religion. Church was always the same and it had a majority of women in attendance although the men and elderly people ran the church overall. It was always the same, repetitive habits and events that occurred in my town but after a while I became accustomed to always being near or known by others.
Now knowing what his actions would lead to, he would go out of his way to familiarize himself with the American traditions leaving his upbringing in the past. A new dislike for his name arises as he “hates signing his name at the bottom...Nothing to do with who he is (76).” Feeling emerge and suddenly Gogol feels as if he has no connections to his name. Only to make these feelings worse he feels humiliated by his classmates for having the name he has but in reality his name isn’t a topic of discussion to his peers. Through this phase the author emphasizes how other people 's opinion are more important to Gogol than what he thinks of himself. The opinions of others have consumed his thoughts so horribly that Gogol becomes viewing himself through the eyes of others. At this point in Gogol’s life it would be a great time for his father to tell him why he chose to give him his birth name but his dad decides to simply give his son the book that at one point saved his life. Not even remotely interested in what he now has in his possession Gogol, “puts the book away on his shelve (77).” On this shelve the book lingers for years to come. As an independent individual Gogol makes little to no effort to remain in contact with his family. Never does he question the book given to him nor does he attempt making small talk with his father about why the book was so important to him and how it influenced him to name his son after the
This is the central theme in which it is described that not having a strong sense of where one comes from, impacts who they are. One of the biggest examples of feeling like he doesn’t fit in is his name. Due to his name not being Bengali nor American, he feels that he is separated from both cultures and essentially from his family. He expresses that “he hates having to explain to people that it does not mean anything ‘in Indian’. ” He always feels left out, especially during Bengali get-togethers where he does not fit in with Sonia, or with the mothers or with the fathers. Gogol is not self-confident when he thinks of himself as Gogol. When he changes his name to Nikhil, for a while, he is unaware of how to be that person for quite some time. The change of his name expresses his change into adulthood, and it is the first step in him finding out who he is. In a way, the two names represent the two parts of his life; Gogol representing the life his parents laid out for him and Nikhil describing the life he wants for himself. Gogol is the name given to him by his parents which was never supposed to be his real name. He always finds it embarrassing that he has a pet name that was turned into a good name. Gogol represents the life that his parents have laid out for him which is a stable home and a stable life, both predictable and with lots of
My family, friends, food, and race impact my cultural identity tremendously. My family is the most important part in my life that build me and their cultural helped me to be the person I am today. My friends are my comfort the person I can go to when I’m in need, the most part we have in common is the Louisiana style that only we know how to wear and to impress everybody. For the most part others think that we are country and have a crazy style but that’s how we were brought up in our cultural and we love it. Plenty of years I thought that I was different thinking I didn’t fit in with the right crowd until my parents told me my specific cultural identity.