Cultural Norms In The Namesake
The pages of The Namesake drift across decades effortlessly, and suck the reader into the daily lives of two generations: the immigrants: Ashoke and Ashima, and their children: Gogol and Sonia. Naturally, it is also a chronicle of all their romantic relationships. As we witness their lives unfold before our eyes, we see love go right, and quite often, wrong.
This allows for an analysis of the finer details of their personalities, their backgrounds, and how they affect their endeavors in the new world, which is, America.
To speak of the immigrants first, Ashoke and Ashima’s romance is one whose initiation has no place for individual choice. It is a classic arranged marriage, determined by cultural norms of India, such as astrological consultation and socio-economic matching. It is a predetermined path, but with a stroke of luck they seem to be instantly attracted to each other. There is an unspoken cultural norm in the country that values a parent-child relationship as having greater significance than that of a husband and wife. Hence, their relationship is seen as an arrangement to set up a family life. While such traditional Bengali marriages lead to the couple being geographically and socially obligated to their parents and extended family, this couple finds a chance to be alone together due to their journey to America. …show more content…
Ashoke is a man who rarely speaks of his own desires but his ambition is apparent from his will to sever ties with his people and homeland to find success & occupational satisfaction in the United States.
Ashima is a resilient and optimistic, sticking firmly to traditional gender roles. Their relationship grows due to their mutual dependency in a new land, his benevolence and her warmth. It is a relationship where affection is implied but never shown. She never even speaks his name, even later in the novel, after his death. In Lahiri’s own words:
“
"Like a kiss or caress in a Hindi movie, a husband's name is something intimate and therefore unspoken, cleverly patched over." (Lahiri, 5)
Unlike their son, their sexual experiences are never described, and rarely even alluded to. This influences the readers’ expectations early on, as the sequence of Gogol’s birth and early experiences with the child are delved into with great detail, but the pleasure or anticipation of copulation goes unmentioned. Clearly, this mirrors the collectivist attitudes they’ve carried over from their old homes. Gogol thinks about this for the first time when he sees Maxine’s parents touch, lean against each other freely: “Gogol is reminded that in all his life he has never witnessed a single moment of physical affection between his parents. Whatever love exists between them is an utterly private, uncelebrated thing.” (Lahiri, 69) Yet, readers interpret their love as passionate in from early on. As time passes it seems to grow deeper, a relationship that achieves increasing stability and mutual understanding. So much so that Ashima even agrees to live by herself, seeing him only on weekends because she wants to stay back at the house while he teaches at university. They begin as fish out of water and end up, despite their apprehensions about American culture, as a functional, co-dependent and social couple.
However, their socializing is restricted only to other Bengali couples and their children. These families are usually involved in similar professions. It is through them that Ashoke and Ashima incorporate Bengali culture into their new lives. It is also through them, that their xenophobia is aggravated. There is a refusal to assimilate, and they imbibe negative stereotypes about Americans from anecdotal evidence. For example, when they become aware of Gogol’s attraction to an American girl, they narrate examples of Bengali men marrying American women and the marriages ending in divorce, in order to discourage him.
Despite receiving these ideas and apprehensions about Americans from family and family friends while growing up, neither Gogol nor Sonia imbibe their xenophobia. This is because they also grow up alongside American children, and see them as regular people having the same capacity for good and bad as their Indian relatives.
In fact, they start developing transgressive tendencies, to lash out against their parents. While they are obedient at home, they lead secret lives that their parents wouldn’t approve of. When they are in college, both the children know about each others’ girlfriend or boyfriend, but their parents don’t. Since dating is seen as a normal part of American teenage life, they are disgusted by the fact that Ashoke and Ashima see them as being “too young to get involved this way.” (Lahiri, 59).
Gogol feels pity for his parents, since they never got to experience what it’s like to be young and in love.
Gogol’s romantic endeavors, unlike his parents, were replete with experimentation. As opposed to their linear, predetermined path of marital life, Gogol allowed himself to explore love in different shapes and sizes years before even thinking of marriage. It seemed unimportant to him, his main focus being on sex and connection, which horrified his parents the one time he admitted it to them. His journey began at a rebellious stage, when he had all but rejected Bengali culture and, as a parallel to it, his own unusual name.
His first kiss was with a girl he lied to about his name. It made him bold, tangibly separating him from his un-American other life. His first experience of intercourse too, was similar: “It is as Nikhil that he loses his virginity at a party at Ezra Stile, with a girl wearing a plaid woolen skirt and combat boots and mustard tights.” (Lahiri, 53)
Gogol’s exploration of love and sexuality is demonstrated with ample detail. What and who he’s attracted to evolves over the course of the novel. It is clearly a reflection of his identity crisis. It is his attitudes towards his cultural identity that turns out to be more important in his decisions than his cultural identity itself.
During his phase of wanting to separate from Bengali culture, he meets Ruth. He never reveals his real name to her and finds freedom due to his college life. He can meet her often, on his campus or hers. He shares a few sexual firsts with her when her roommates are away, and can afford the luxury of privacy. Something his parents could never have right off the bat.
When he meets Maxine, his separation is complete, and he is ready to assimilate completely into American culture. He is in awe of the casual freedom propagated by her parents. "He cannot imagine coming from such parents, such a background, and when he describes his own upbringing it feels bland by comparison." (Lahiri, 56).
He embraces the American values embodied by Maxine’s parents instantly, and so he even feels like he is cheating on his own heritage when he spends time with her family and her. There are aspects of their life that would be unthinkable back in Calcutta. These range from the mundane, like Lydia not having a need to constantly pay attention to his plate, to the (to him) astonishing: Maxine’s parents’ casual encouragement of their sex life, and making love in the room above her parents. The divide between this and where he comes from scares him.. he wouldn’t even be able to mention Ruth to his parents without kicking up a storm. There is a sense of being unchained, but being a traitor. While his parents take trips out of a sense of obligation, Maxine’s do it for pleasure, and invite him too.
Maxine only hears of his original name when he is forced to make her meet his parents, but he treats it like it’s nothing.
The revelation of the true reason for his name, and later, the death of Ashoke, becomes a catalyst for Gogol. He returns to his roots, driven by a sense of duty towards his father, and to achieve solidarity with his mother and sister in this time of grief. This is followed by the first relationship that is set up by his mother, the only one of his relationships that his parents would encourage. Moushumi is intimately familiar with his background. Although they are hesitant, even guilty at first, to be following the path that was always forced upon them, they quickly fall in love. Perhaps due to the ease with which they would find acceptance for it within their respective families and shared background, they get married within a year. They fulfill their parents wishes by having a traditional ceremony that neither of them really wants. This move can be seen as impulsive, an easy way out for both of them. However, she still believes she will not follow their footsteps exactly:
“This assurance is important to her; along with the Sanskrit vows she'd repeated at her wedding, she'd privately vowed that she'd never grow fully dependent on her husband, as her mother has.” (Lahiri, 121)
However, soon in the marriage Moushumi becomes restless, and guilty about having made the choice of marrying a Bengali man. She believes she has turned into someone she promised herself she would never be. Her passionate affair breaks them up, and Gogol is left to reflect on his doomed relationships. He finds a new respect for Ashoke and Ashima’s lasting love. The final lines of the novel show him accepting himself for who he is, and the readers come to a realization that a successful relationship would involve acceptance of both his lives, of all of him.
This allows for an analysis of the finer details of their personalities, their backgrounds, and how they affect their endeavors in the new world, which is, America.
To speak of the immigrants first, Ashoke and Ashima’s romance is one whose initiation has no place for individual choice. It is a classic arranged marriage, determined by cultural norms of India, such as astrological consultation and socio-economic matching. It is a predetermined path, but with a stroke of luck they seem to be instantly attracted to each other. There is an unspoken cultural norm in the country that values a parent-child relationship as having greater significance than that of a husband and wife. Hence, their relationship is seen as an arrangement to set up a family life. While such traditional Bengali marriages lead to the couple being geographically and socially obligated to their parents and extended family, this couple finds a chance to be alone together due to their journey to America. …show more content…
Ashoke is a man who rarely speaks of his own desires but his ambition is apparent from his will to sever ties with his people and homeland to find success & occupational satisfaction in the United States.
Ashima is a resilient and optimistic, sticking firmly to traditional gender roles. Their relationship grows due to their mutual dependency in a new land, his benevolence and her warmth. It is a relationship where affection is implied but never shown. She never even speaks his name, even later in the novel, after his death. In Lahiri’s own words:
“
"Like a kiss or caress in a Hindi movie, a husband's name is something intimate and therefore unspoken, cleverly patched over." (Lahiri, 5)
Unlike their son, their sexual experiences are never described, and rarely even alluded to. This influences the readers’ expectations early on, as the sequence of Gogol’s birth and early experiences with the child are delved into with great detail, but the pleasure or anticipation of copulation goes unmentioned. Clearly, this mirrors the collectivist attitudes they’ve carried over from their old homes. Gogol thinks about this for the first time when he sees Maxine’s parents touch, lean against each other freely: “Gogol is reminded that in all his life he has never witnessed a single moment of physical affection between his parents. Whatever love exists between them is an utterly private, uncelebrated thing.” (Lahiri, 69) Yet, readers interpret their love as passionate in from early on. As time passes it seems to grow deeper, a relationship that achieves increasing stability and mutual understanding. So much so that Ashima even agrees to live by herself, seeing him only on weekends because she wants to stay back at the house while he teaches at university. They begin as fish out of water and end up, despite their apprehensions about American culture, as a functional, co-dependent and social couple.
However, their socializing is restricted only to other Bengali couples and their children. These families are usually involved in similar professions. It is through them that Ashoke and Ashima incorporate Bengali culture into their new lives. It is also through them, that their xenophobia is aggravated. There is a refusal to assimilate, and they imbibe negative stereotypes about Americans from anecdotal evidence. For example, when they become aware of Gogol’s attraction to an American girl, they narrate examples of Bengali men marrying American women and the marriages ending in divorce, in order to discourage him.
Despite receiving these ideas and apprehensions about Americans from family and family friends while growing up, neither Gogol nor Sonia imbibe their xenophobia. This is because they also grow up alongside American children, and see them as regular people having the same capacity for good and bad as their Indian relatives.
In fact, they start developing transgressive tendencies, to lash out against their parents. While they are obedient at home, they lead secret lives that their parents wouldn’t approve of. When they are in college, both the children know about each others’ girlfriend or boyfriend, but their parents don’t. Since dating is seen as a normal part of American teenage life, they are disgusted by the fact that Ashoke and Ashima see them as being “too young to get involved this way.” (Lahiri, 59).
Gogol feels pity for his parents, since they never got to experience what it’s like to be young and in love.
Gogol’s romantic endeavors, unlike his parents, were replete with experimentation. As opposed to their linear, predetermined path of marital life, Gogol allowed himself to explore love in different shapes and sizes years before even thinking of marriage. It seemed unimportant to him, his main focus being on sex and connection, which horrified his parents the one time he admitted it to them. His journey began at a rebellious stage, when he had all but rejected Bengali culture and, as a parallel to it, his own unusual name.
His first kiss was with a girl he lied to about his name. It made him bold, tangibly separating him from his un-American other life. His first experience of intercourse too, was similar: “It is as Nikhil that he loses his virginity at a party at Ezra Stile, with a girl wearing a plaid woolen skirt and combat boots and mustard tights.” (Lahiri, 53)
Gogol’s exploration of love and sexuality is demonstrated with ample detail. What and who he’s attracted to evolves over the course of the novel. It is clearly a reflection of his identity crisis. It is his attitudes towards his cultural identity that turns out to be more important in his decisions than his cultural identity itself.
During his phase of wanting to separate from Bengali culture, he meets Ruth. He never reveals his real name to her and finds freedom due to his college life. He can meet her often, on his campus or hers. He shares a few sexual firsts with her when her roommates are away, and can afford the luxury of privacy. Something his parents could never have right off the bat.
When he meets Maxine, his separation is complete, and he is ready to assimilate completely into American culture. He is in awe of the casual freedom propagated by her parents. "He cannot imagine coming from such parents, such a background, and when he describes his own upbringing it feels bland by comparison." (Lahiri, 56).
He embraces the American values embodied by Maxine’s parents instantly, and so he even feels like he is cheating on his own heritage when he spends time with her family and her. There are aspects of their life that would be unthinkable back in Calcutta. These range from the mundane, like Lydia not having a need to constantly pay attention to his plate, to the (to him) astonishing: Maxine’s parents’ casual encouragement of their sex life, and making love in the room above her parents. The divide between this and where he comes from scares him.. he wouldn’t even be able to mention Ruth to his parents without kicking up a storm. There is a sense of being unchained, but being a traitor. While his parents take trips out of a sense of obligation, Maxine’s do it for pleasure, and invite him too.
Maxine only hears of his original name when he is forced to make her meet his parents, but he treats it like it’s nothing.
The revelation of the true reason for his name, and later, the death of Ashoke, becomes a catalyst for Gogol. He returns to his roots, driven by a sense of duty towards his father, and to achieve solidarity with his mother and sister in this time of grief. This is followed by the first relationship that is set up by his mother, the only one of his relationships that his parents would encourage. Moushumi is intimately familiar with his background. Although they are hesitant, even guilty at first, to be following the path that was always forced upon them, they quickly fall in love. Perhaps due to the ease with which they would find acceptance for it within their respective families and shared background, they get married within a year. They fulfill their parents wishes by having a traditional ceremony that neither of them really wants. This move can be seen as impulsive, an easy way out for both of them. However, she still believes she will not follow their footsteps exactly:
“This assurance is important to her; along with the Sanskrit vows she'd repeated at her wedding, she'd privately vowed that she'd never grow fully dependent on her husband, as her mother has.” (Lahiri, 121)
However, soon in the marriage Moushumi becomes restless, and guilty about having made the choice of marrying a Bengali man. She believes she has turned into someone she promised herself she would never be. Her passionate affair breaks them up, and Gogol is left to reflect on his doomed relationships. He finds a new respect for Ashoke and Ashima’s lasting love. The final lines of the novel show him accepting himself for who he is, and the readers come to a realization that a successful relationship would involve acceptance of both his lives, of all of him.