Responsibility In 'The Namesake' By Jhumpa Lahiri

Throughout the novel The Namesake you see the similarities and the differences between Gogol and Ashoke. Ashoke is born in India and he has made himself an educated man, he has also worked hard for his family to provide for them and show them how to succeed in America. Gogol is Ashoke’s son, Gogol has some hard times trying to figure out who he is as a person and who he wants to be. Both father and son seem to be so different on the surface when really, deep down they are so much alike.

The film, The Namesake, directed by Mira Nair, suggests that everyone has a cultural identity, whether they ignore or embrace it. Gogol Ganguli initially wants to abandon his family’s traditions and adopt American customs since he was born in America. Soon he learns that his name has a very emotional meaning to his father. Because of his new knowledge of the significance of his name, he begins to enter a transformation where he accepts and loves his culture. Throughout the film, Gogol has an internal conflict with himself when, on one side, he has his Indian culture, and on the other, he has the American culture he has always wanted to belong to. Although some people think that cultural identity is destined and final, I claim that cultural identity can change because of how willing people are to welcome it.

Difficult choices come and go from our life. Like trying to understand who you are as a person and where you come from. In the book The Namesake, a boy named Gogol grows up in a cultural Bengali family while living in a different country with different customs. Gogol is special because he is trying to balance the two cultures. Gogol tries to understand and learn his family's culture but tends to pick and choose things from each culture to fit his lifestyle. His response to his cultural collision is very unique. From this cultural collision Gogol question himself and his life decisions.

Regardless of how a child acts towards their parents, all that matters in the end is their unconditional love for them. However, the time it takes for them to express their gratitude will depend on each child. In the novel The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri demonstrates this, describing the life of a young boy named Gogol and his continually progressing relationship with his mother. It demonstrates that a child is unable to view his or her parents as a human being until the parent figure experiences a traumatic event that allows the child to empathize with their parents.

Gogol grapples with his name throughout the majority of the novel, yet this tension was in the makings even before his birth. Ashoke and Ashima being immigrants set Gogol up to live in two different cultures, American and Bengali. Many children of immigrants may feel like Gogol, having one foot in each world. Gogol framed his struggle with cultural identity through something tangible, his name. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, Gogol’s struggle with cultural identity is exposed most greatly by the name others call him and his reaction to it.

Jhumpa Lahiri in The Namesake illustrates the assimilation of Gogol as a second generation American immigrant, where Gogol faces the assimilation of becoming an American. Throughout the novel, Gogol has been struggling with his name. From kindergarten to college, Gogol has questioned the reason why he was called Nikhil when he was a child, to the reason why he was called Gogol when he was in college. Having a Russian name, Gogol often encounters questions from people around him, asking the reason of his name. Gogol was not given an Indian name from his Indian family or an American name from the fact that he was born in America, to emphasize that how hard an individual try to assimilate into a different

For some people finding out who they are is not exactly the hardest thing to do in the world, some know it from the moment they are born. There are, however, also other people who have to struggle and search for their identities. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is the story of a boy who does just that. It focuses on the Ganguli’s, a Bengali family, who, after moving homes from India to the United States, struggle to uphold a delicate balance between honoring the traditions of their heritage and assimilating into the American culture. Although Ashoke and Ashima’s parents are proud of the sacrifices they have made to provide their children with as many opportunities as they could, their son, Gogol, strives to create his own identity without leaving his heritage behind. In the novel Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, Gogol faces many struggles while searching for his identity.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake” examines an immigrant bengali family that has moved from India to America, and tries to hold their bengali culture while trying to accept American lifestyles. Ashima and Gogol each struggle with their cultural identity throughout Lahiri’s novel. The pressure of western society and the crisis of losing one’s culture and identity is demonstrated through the characterization and Gogol and Ashima’s relationships while living in America.

Difficult choices come and go from our life. Like trying to understand who you are as a person and where you come from. In the book The Namesake, a boy named Gogol grows up in a cultural Bengali family while living in a different country with different customs. Gogol is special because he is trying to balance the two cultures. Gogol tries to understand and learn his family's culture but tends to pick and choose things from each culture to fit his lifestyle.

Intergenerational conflicts mainly involves in the process of searching identity in a new country. In The Namesake, it seems like the major part of the book is about Gogol’s identity formation and confusion. In fact, Ashima is also part of the process of forming American identity. One of the significant incident is the name-changing process of Gogol. At first, we can see how Gangulis’ parents Ashima and Ashoke are “still proudly and deeply entrenched in their Indian heritage” (Bhattacharyya 77), when they were asked to name their baby after themselves or one of the ancestors. They think “This tradition doesn’t exist for Bengalis, naming a son after father or grandfather, a daughter after mother or grandmother. This sign of respect in America and Europe, this symbol of heritage and lineage, would be ridiculed in India” (The Namesake 28). But later when Gogol ask to change the name, his parents agrees either because becomes accepting individualism or doesn’t want to explain why they name Gogol at the very first place. This explains how much Gogol wants to possess a new identity beyond his parents’ traditional norms.

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. While Ashima felt insecure and worried about her new life in the United States, her husband Ashoke, rather wanted to settle in and struggle for a new life. All of uncertainty and reluctance of this new-coming couple faded way when their son,

An individual’s identity is reflected in many aspects of their character. On of the aspects which affect a person’s identity is culture; culture plays a major role in the formation of an individual's character. It imposes customs which ultimately manifest through a person’s identity. The clear link between culture and identity suggests that conflict with one’s culture may affect a person’s sense of self. Jhumpa Lahiri explores this type of conflict in the novel The Namesake, in which Gogol Ganguli is stuck between two cultures the Bengali traditions of his parents and the American culture he grows up with. The novel explores Gogol’s conflict with both cultures and how it ultimately impacts the development of his identity.

The novel The Namesake revolves around and focuses on the life of Gogal Ganguly who is the only son of Ashok and Ashima who had moved to U.S.A from India their homeland. U.S.A is the place where Gogol is born and brought up with his unique name. However, in India names play a great role. Whenever a child is born in India a lot of importance is placed on the naming of the child. In India usually there are two names, one is nick name and one is official name. Nick name is used at home or casually by friends and relatives. Mostly they does not behold any significant meaning. But, official name beholds a lot of importance. Official name is used professionally in school, universities and offices.

The important themes of name and identity are very evident in Chapter 3. The chapter contains when Gogol firsts starts kindergarten. Ashima and Ashoke wanted him to go by "Gogol" at home but "Nikhil" at school. However this then leads to confusing him and he has no interest in another name. He considers that depending on where he is he may need to be two different people then leading to him having two different names. "He is afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesn't know. Who doesn't know him." (Lahiri ). During his adolescent years Gogol connects a new identity with having a new name. His unusual name does not bother him until he turns eleven and he attends a class trip to a cemetery which is when he uncovers that his name is special. Some of the other gravestones have names he has never heard before so he makes rubbings of them because he

Allusions to Nikolai V. Gogol and his short story "The Overcoat" permeate Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake, beginning with Gogol's being the name the protagonist is called through most of the book. Yet few of the reviewers of the novel mentioned Nikolai Gogol at all in their discussions of the novel, except to describe the protagonist Gogol's loathing of his name, or to quote without comment or explanation Dostoevski's famous line, "We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat." So far, no one has looked beyond the surfaces to examine the significance of the allusions to Gogol that are so much a part of the fabric of Lahiri's novel.