The Namesake

Ganguli family had both good and bad experiences in America, a country which is intensely foreign to them. They faced a lot of problems to adjust in a foreign country after leaving back their family and coming far from their own native society to a place which is very new to them and near people who are very different from them. They both tried to maintain the cultures and rituals of both the societies. While Ashoke’s was enjoying the American society, Ashima was missing her family and was day by day getting homesick. She finds difficult to understand the rituals and customs of American society but she maintained proper balance between both the societies in India and America. In one way she made her children watch English serials and on the other hand she taught them Indian traditions. This proves her love for both the societies. This can be known by the lines mentioned in the novel:

The film The Namesake started out while Ashoke Ganguli was traveling on a train to visit his grandfather. On the train Ashoke meets fellow traveler, Ghosh, who impresses upon him to start traveling. The train crashes and Ashoke almost dies but is found and survives. After the crash, Ashoke relocates to America for school. In 1977, Ashoke returns home to India to be arranged to marry Ashima. When Ashima accepts Ashoke’s marriage proposal, she has to move to New York with him where their residence becomes permanent. Ashima has to adapt and adjust to American culture, which is very hard for her because she has never been out of India and she misses her family. Shortly after, they become parents of a boy, who they name Nikhil, with the

In the novel The Namesake one of our main protagonist, Ashima, is a foreigner from India

An analogy has been drawn about how she was in the past and how is she now. She was a carefree person, demanding love in her life, wanting to take care of her children and become a house wife and now she works as a schoolteacher, has become a responsible person concerned about her husband and child, struggling for her son’s life, bearing tantrums of her sister-in-law and living in a small house in a small city. On the other hand, Komal, sister-in-law of Anjali is a character shown who seems to be frustrated from her life from the time she has lost her husband. The book has depicted another face of an Indian woman, who lives her entire life following the customs that the society has decided for a widow. Anjali tried to make her first marriage successful by taking care of small things like making her husband, his favorite cardamom chai and best of meals while Prakash’s second wife Indu was never concerned about any of his likings and gave priority to her own personal

While Usha had one experience living in America, her mother, Aparna, had a very different one than her daughter. From Usha's perspective, Aparna is viewed as a traditional Bengali mother. She cooked, she cleaned and cared for her family. She was a house wife, chosen to marry a man she didn't love and raise a child as evidence of the arrangement. She was unsettled by the

In addition, disappointment is another reason Jayanti choses to let assimilation take over her self-identity. When she finally realizes that America is not as glamorous as she imagined, read about or saw in pictures, she feels disheartened. When she arrives, she looks forward in seeing, “neat red brick house with matching flowery drapes, the huge, perfectly mowed lawn green like it had been painted, the shiny concrete driveway on which sat two shiny motorcars”(73). However, she is greeted by a, “crowded [apartment] with faded, over stuffed sofas and rickety end tables that look like they’ve come from a larger place...the tiny room I am to occupy - it is the same size as my bathroom at home” (73,74).

Forming a new identity in a foreign country is not an easy task. Immigrants usually face challenges to identify themselves. Identity formation is the development of one’s distinctive personality due to particular reasons such as new environment, new culture and conflicts. During the process, some characters from Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake either create or deny the bond with their own culture; some undergo conflicts among generations. Those processes reflect significantly in Ashima and Gogol throughout the book. The degree of assimilations determines to what extent the characters have formed the new identity in the new culture.

Ashima has some of the biggest psychological changes in the book.

Obviously Ashima and Ashoke also faced lots of problems when they first lived in a new country; they were forced to leave their “comfort zone”. They spoke a different language, grew up with Indian tradition, and even had to raise a child. They did not have any friends, not to say the economic base to provide the best resources for the whole family. Their foremost goal was to adapt to the new environment and become a real part of their community. But being out of their comfort zone is the crucial step that they must not skip. They have to be confident to make new friends, speak the language that they have not even get used to yet, and “abandon” the tradition in their hometown. Life is like a cliff, and only those who have guts and faith can climb up to the peak of the mountain to see the twilight. They had to try to understand, communicate and even to compromise with each other, and after Gogol's birth, they soon were inundated with daily work. It also has some similarity with my Gateway scholar life at Brandeis.

Despite the fact that Dadima and Asha were both adopted back when they were only babies, they both had very different relationships with their step mothers. For starters Dadima looks up to her stepmother with fondness and respect, she said that her mother in law was a very kind woman that was so full of generosity towards others. Upon hearing this Asha was surprised since the relationship between her and Somer has been complicated, they have had many arguments that have been about her school grades, and even one about her trip to Bombay, Asha once even complained to Somer about how her real parents would actually understand her.

In the novel The red and the black, Stendahl the French author states, “A novel is a mirror that walks along a path ”. He believes that a novel doesn’t just come from imagination, but authors generally write based on their own life experience. In the novel the Namesake, the author Jhumpa Lahiri uses the characters of Ashima and Ashoke to present the life of a couple of immigrants from India, living in the United States and raising their children. However, based on Lahiri’s interview on NPR, her parents are similar to Ashima and Ashoke in regard to the distance with Americans, their faithfulness to the Indian culture, and their feelings towards America.

However, when their son is born, only Ashoke, Ashima and the doctor are present to greet the boy into the world. Ashima is so greatly affected by the idea of her son being raised alone she asks Ashoke to finish his degree and states that “ [she] wants to go back” (33). The tone of the novel reflects the

All around the world people struggle with a sense of self-individualization, which is the internal battle each person has to face in order to discover ones true identity. The quest to find oneself is a difficult and lengthy endevor that can take a lifetime to accomplish. Some if not most people never reach a point where they can truly face who they truly are. In the Novel The Namesake by Lahiri, identity is illustrated by intensely examining the importance of ones background, name and culture. The main characters in the story try to uncover the reasoning behind their lineage, which they belive will lead to discovering the answer destiny in life. Playing on this belief the Ganguli’s sustain the element of traditions with them and practices

At the start of the film, Ashoke and Ashima leave India for America and their life together begins. The move from the big city of Calcutta to the big city of New York is much lonelier because they have no family nearby and the land is unfamiliar. The climate is also different, it is winter time and the weather is cold. Ashima is learning very quickly that the living conditions are different. Ashoke explains to her that they have gas twenty-four hours a day, and the difference between hot and cold water symbols. Also there was no need for her to boil the water for drinking; she could just drink straight from the tap. Life in America is different and at times lonely, however Ashoke believes it’s the land of opportunity.

The immigrant experience affects families in a unique manner wherein ethnicity, and therefore, identity becomes something continuously negotiated. Jhumpa Lahiri’s contemporary novel, “The Namesake,” beautifully illustrates the complexities of generational culture clashes and the process of self-individualization over the course of this experience. Lahiri challenges the often-one-dimensional approach to ethnic identity by allowing readers an intimate and omnipresent look into the internal struggles of the Gangulis, a first-and-second-generation Bengali family, following their relocation to America. The novel incorporates a heavy presence of reading, and the abundant representation of books and documents throughout it are vital to its