Gogol Belonging In Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake

Jhumpa Lahiri's 2003 novel The Namesake is the fictional narrative of Gogol Ganguli, a second generation immigrant in America, and his haunting feeling of not being able to identify with his name. Gogol feels that his name “has nothing to do with who he is, that it is neither Indian nor American but of all things Russian.” (Lahiri 70) This essay will argue that Gogol's problematic relationship to his name stems from a need for a sense of belonging.

Coming from a family that values their heritage, Gogol's name distances him from his roots. As a child, Gogol puts a lot of emotional emphasis on his last name, for instance being astonished by “seeing six pages full of Gangulis, three columns to a page, in the Calcutta telephone directory. He'd
However, Nikhil is also aurally similar to the name Nikolai Gogol, his namesake and source of the non-American, non-Indian identity that his’ father deemed him to bear as an infant. Although young Gogol despised his parents' wish for him to identify with the name Nikhil in formal situations (Lahiri 55), he later chose this name himself. Presumably this is a result of wanting a name that is closer to Bengali culture rather than a name that sounds American. Further, Gogol’s reluctance to disappoint his father factors into his decision as he, while blaming the father for much of his personal dismay, knows that his father chose the name Gogol, “the first thing his father had given him” (Lahiri 250), out of love.

In conclusion, the Indian background of Gogol's parents and their new life in America are two different worlds in his perspective; one where Gogol is neither Indian nor American enough due to his name. With time he realizes that his name was a product of his father's love, and therefore Gogol Ganguli does