The Namesake Outline

After leaving Logan, Janie marries Joe Starks, believing that their marriage will flourish where her marriage with Logan failed, as Janie is the one choosing her partner, not Nanny. However, her initial attraction to Joe blinds her from his flaws and causes Janie to unknowingly enter into a more oppressive relationship than she previously had with Logan. Joe’s controlling nature becomes more apparent when he is around other people, as he yearns for a strong public persona in which he is tremendously respected. He craves to gain the admiration of the people of Eatonville and concludes that keeping Janie quiet is the best way to accomplish this. When the people of Eatonville prompt Janie to offer “words uh encouragement” Joe stops them, explaining that his “wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout…speech-makin” (Hurston 43).

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.

Therefore, both Joe and Janie are looked up to by the townspeople. To some extent, this could be considered a form of equality. Unfortunately, this is about where the equality stops. While Joe gains prominence through his own actions and words, Janie gains some prominence by doing what she is told to do. She is not permitted to voice her own opinions or join in the lighthearted gossiping which occurs outside of their store. Janie is expected to be the dutiful wife. If she makes a mistake, then she should have known better and therefore should accept her punishment quietly. Joe holds the obvious upper hand in the relationship until his death whereupon Janie inherits a large amount of money and learns to enjoy the freedom of living as her own person.

Janie’s voice in her relationship with Joe Starks is an important aspect because it reflects her submission and Joe’s control towards Janie in their marriage, until she finds both her voice and personal strength. In Joe’s induction as mayor, he declines the chance for Janie to speak; “Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat” (43). When Janie enters her marriage with Joe she has the understanding that his voice is more dominate than hers and as a result relinquishes her voice. Joe quickly declines Janie’s opportunity to speak, and Janie complies because she does not have

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.

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.

Even before Joe’s death, Janie “was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew not how to mix them.”(75) Joe’s influences controlled Janie to the point where she lost her independence and hope. She no longer knew how to adapt to the change brought upon her. When she finally settles and begins to gain back that independence, the outward existence of society came back into play. “Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing. Dey needs aid and assistance.”(90) Except this time Janie acted upon her own judgment and fell for someone out of the ordinary. Tea Cake was a refreshing change for Janie, despite the society’s disapproval. “Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”(128) This was what she had always dreamt of. When she was with Tea Cake, she no longer questioned inwardly, she simply rejected society’s opinions and acted upon her own desires.

The makeup of our everyday lives is influenced immensely by the culture we are a part of. In Bengali culture, a person is usually given two names, a pet name and a proper name. Families who move from Calcutta often struggle to assimilate to American life and maintain their cultural heritage. In the novel, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol’s changing of his name along with his romantic relationships with Ruth and Maxine show his initial rejection of Bengali identity and culture. This essay will give an explanation into the ways in which Gogol rejected his culture, first by changing his name, but also through his close relationships with American girls.

Janie is married to two men, before she finds Tea Cake, that both suppress her individuality in their own ways. Janie's first husband, Logan Killicks, suppresses her by keeping her in a marriage that she can't fully, or at all, love the man she's married to. "Cause you told me Ah wuz gointer love him, and, and Ah don’t. Maybe if somebody was to tell me how, Ah could do it." Janie says she needs to be told how to feel about Logan in order for her to be able to love feel anything towards him at all. Janie is a mixture of the people around her because they're telling her to live and how to think. Janie can't bring herself to figure out how to do these things on her own so she ends up looking for the answers in the man she married, her grandmother, and her society. Joe Starks, Janie's second husband, keeps her from showing who she really wants to be by

Jody’s pride, materialism, and urge to dominant had turned him into a cold, bitter old man that was on his dying bed with kidney problems [Page 85]. This was the only time Janie had to tell him about the independence she had longed for during their marriage [Page 85]. She knows that Jody was a good husband in the aspects that he provided for her and had power. These were the things that Nanny Crawford had wanted for her. However, Janie the things she wanted which were love and independence in love. She also gained wisdom from her and Joe’s long time together. Janie did not have to leave Jody to get out of this marriage, because he died immediately after she told him all the problems she felt had been in their marriage.

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

As Gogol grows, he begins to hate his name as Gogol, and requests to change his name to Nikhil. ""What is the reason you want to change your name, Mr. Ganguli?" the judge asks. … "I hate the name Gogol," he says. "I always hated it."" (p.101-102) as Gogol brings up this topic to discuss during dinner befor he changes his name in the summer, Gogol claims that because he is an Indian with a Russian name in America, nobody is taking him seriously, thrust requesting to change his name into Nikhil, even if it makes a huge hassle to change his legal documents. With out the question of his rare name and confusion of the choice, Gogol accepts himself more easier and believes that he has become more Americanized. Gogol sees himself more Americanized as people do while he attends parties and other group activities in his social circle.

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.

In the novel NAMESAKE Gogol struggles with his identity and wrestles with his own beliefs and what society expects from him. His parents, Ashima and Ashoke, were born in India but moved to the US shortly after their marriage. When Gogol was born the doctors forced Ashima and Ashoke to choose a name for him right there, which goes against their Bengali customs. They eventually choose the name Gogol to go on his birth certificate but later they choose his “good name” to be Nikhil. Ashima and Ashoke wanted the school to call Gogol by his “good name” but later find out that he will be referred to as Gogol because that's what he prefers. As he grows Gogol begins to resent his name because it makes him seem like an outsider or foreigner compared to his peers with typical American names despite him being born in America. Throughout his life Gogol switches back and forth between which name he prefers, however this indecisiveness was foreshadowed before Gogol could even talk. During his annaprasan, or rice ceremony, Gogol is presented with some dirt, a pen, and a dollar bill whichever he chooses is supposed to predict his future career, however Gogol doesn’t choose any, instead he cries. Throughout his life Gogol also dates varies women, each of whom depict where he is emotionally and mentally in life.

In the novel, The Namesake, the author Jhumpa Lahiri, presents Gogol as an Indian-American born in Massachusetts who has many conflicts throughout his life. Lahiri presents Gogol with many details to help the readers characterize him in different stages of his life. In the novel, there are several messages that the author presents through the development of Gogol’s character. He is a plentiful character who finally falls into place after a great deal of events in his life.