The Namesake Irony Essay

They have never been on a date in their lives and therefore they see no reason to encourage Gogol, certainly not at his age." Both of Gogol's parents grew up learning the Bengali culture. They know that living in another country may change some of their traditions, but they still want to withhold the culture as much as possible. Nevertheless, Gogol doesn't so much care for his Bengali culture because it is now affecting his life. Gogol's relationships have been affected by his cultural collision, "His relationship with her is one accomplishment in his life about which they are not in the least bit proud or pleased... He wishes his parents could simply accept her as her family accepts him, without pressure of any kind." Both Gogol and his parents have been brought up differently about things. Because they don't see eye to eye their relationship isn't like it used to be. Now that Gogol is growing up, his diverse traditions are affecting his life with his girlfriend and his family. All of Gogol's life is not being afflicted because Gogol has stopped continuing the Bengali culture. It is just grasping the American culture more than he did in the past.

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.

After becoming Nikhil to the outside world, Gogol struggles to find his identity after rejecting the one his parents gave him. On the weekend trip home, he meets a girl named Ruth, whom he then begins a relationship with. While he likes Ruth a lot, he never introduces her to his parents. This is most likely because he knows they would not approve of her, nor is he sure of himself because of his identity creation through Ruth. As Song writes, “His first girlfriend Ruth...suggests a particular version of American identity, one forged in the progressive counter-culture formations of the 1960s, into which Gogol might merge” (357). Furthermore, Ruth represents an American identity that Gogol lays hold of and seeks to embrace. After dating for a while, Ruth goes to study abroad at Oxford and after returning, their relationship begins to fall apart and they breakup. His head-over-heels style in which he forms relationships leaves him very open to becoming disheartened after his relationships

Yet Moushumi is the only one who is involved with his family and can fully understand Gogol. He looks for ways to escape the pieces in his life that he dislikes which makes him seem eccentric to the rest of the society he lives in. While Moushumis relationship is imperative with Gogol, Maxine gives him closure, the ability to experience the life he may actually have wanted to grow up in America, while it lasts, ”Quickly, he falls in love with Maxine, the house, and Gerald and Lydia's manner of living, for to know her and love her is to know and love all these things. He loves the mess that surrounds her Maxine, her hundreds of things always covering her floor and her bedside table, her habit when they are alone on the fifth floor, of not shutting the door when she goes to the bathroom. Her unkempt ways, a challenge to his increasingly minimalist taste, charm him”(137). The author utilizes an ample amount of detail in this passage to describe what he loves about his relationship and what lured him to Maxine even more; however, I feel Gogol admires this part about his relationship with Maxine because her lifestyle is not as strict as his or Moushumi’s. This girl had a great amount of freedom and he embraced what he didn’t and couldn’t like he does with her and her family have in his

After his divorce, which is a second difficult experience in his life, Gogol spends time with his family, specifically at a party his mother is hosting before she leaves for India, which again influences him to accept his Bengali culture. At this party, Gogol explores his old house and finds the copy of The Overcoat that his father once gave to him, which makes him realize that “without people in the world to call him Gogol, no matter how long he himself lives, Gogol Ganguli will, once and for all, vanish from the lips of loved ones, and so, cease to exist” (Lahiri 433). In college and when he was Maxine, going by Nikhil gives Gogol a newfound perspective in his life, one where being shameful of his name does not really exist. However, after going through both his father’s death and his divorce, Gogol feels upset when thinking about how he changed his name, which “provides no solace at all” (433). With most of his family and Moushumi gone, few people are left to call him Gogol, reminding him who he once was. Gogol’s sadness shows how he has become comfortable with his birth name, which he originally hated. Through his reading of The Overcoat and his reflection on the possible nonexistence of his life as Gogol, Gogol accepts both his name and his culture, which ultimately shows how he becomes comfortable with

He is bewildered as to why his father named him Gogol as it not Bengali nor a normal American name which leads him to struggle to understand himself and his identity. In Bengali families, "individual names are sacred, inviolable. They are not meant to be inherited or shared" (28). However, Gogol grows up living in America, where children are often ashamed of their differences from others. As a teenager, Gogol desires to blend in and to live unnoticed. This presents a struggle between two cultures. Ashima and Ashoke want to raise Gogol and his younger sister with Bengali culture and values. On the other hand Gogol grew wanting to belong by relating mostly to peers and the surrounding culture in America. It is only much later in their lives that they begin to truly value their Bengali heritage and that Gogol finds the importance in his name. During high school Gogol struggles to accept his name as he sees it has no real significance not him. When Gogol heads for college he rejects his identity completely and legally changes his name to Nikhil which allows him to somewhat feel a sense of belonging as this name relates to his Bengali roots, even though he had been ashamed of those exact roots in schooling. Gogol dreads having to go visit home and return to a life where he is "Gogol". To him, Gogol is not only his name; it bears all his discomfort and struggles to fit into two different cultures as he grew up. His life at college makes it easy for Gogol to live as

Many second generation minorities from immigrant parents are driven subconsciously to conform to new culture and social norms. For foreign born parents and native born children integrating the two cultures they inhabit brings about different obstacles and experiences. In Jhumpa’s “The Namesake” the protagonist Gogol is a native born American with foreign born parents. The difference with birth location plays an important role in assimilating to a new society in a new geography. The difficulty for parents is the fact that they’ve spent a decent amount of time accustomed to a new geography, language, culture and society which makes it difficult to feel comfortable when all of that changes. For Gogol the difficulty only lies with the cultural norms imposed by his parent’s and the culture and social norms that are constantly presented in the new society.

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.

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.

A strongminded man who has everything going for him, nice job nice car, great friends, etc. comes home every night to a sick mother whom he takes care of after a long day of living a lavish life. His one weakness is his sick mother because she taught him everything. No one, not even his best friend knows about his other life and so that 's how he keeps it. Oh the irony right? Big strong man afraid to live his truth in fear of change and facing his reality. In The Metamorphosis, author Franz Kafka speaks on a character name Gregor, who somehow manages to transform into a hideous insect, and the ironic life he lives. During the story Gregor has a family whom he cares for, a job as a salesman, and a lack in

In the Namesake written by Jhumpa Lahiri, America is often referred to as the land of opportunity despite how foreign immigrants are still being treated as second class citizens such as an outcast. Throughout the novel The Namesake the parents of Gogol, Ashoke Ganguli and Ashima Ganguli brought their family to America to find their opportunity despite their strong beliefs in their Bengali culture. Going against their Bengali belief, Ashok and Ashima settled in america with their baby boy Gogol and their baby girl Sonia. Throughout the novel The Namesake Gogol has been struggling to find himself and make peace. Gradually throughout the story Gogol begins to wonder why his parents made the decision to come to america, Despite their strong Bengali beliefs to stay in india. Gogol’s crisis to finding himself slowly deteriorates when he finds himself come to peace with who he is. The author, Jhumpa Lahiri shows Gogol improving and developing as a mature character intellectually, socially, and emotionally despite all the hardships that Gogol had faced.

Gogol’s identity crisis is a reoccurring theme throughout Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake. His struggle is further illustrated though his various relationships with Ruth, Maxine, and Moushumi. As each relationship unfolds, the reader is provided insight into Gogol’s internal conflict surrounding his lack of true cultural identity. It is through examination of Gogol’s romantic relationships that the reader begins to understand his struggle as all three women are incredibly different from one another, but very representative of Gogol himself and who he aspires to be.

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

For Ashima, books are carriers of names and records of past connections with friends and family. Later in the novel, Gogol’s wife Moushumi ends up rekindling an old romance with a man named Dimitri in a blatant act of infidelity, after discovering his name on a resume in her colleague’s office and rediscovering his name scrawled inside a book on her shelf at home. Both the resume and book are fraught with meaning as they bear his name and remind her of their previous connection. Literature is central to Lahiri’s depiction of past connections because reading is a method for validating human experience, while teaching empathy for separate human experiences: reading connects people.