The Namesake
Riley Quinlan
Professor Sapra
ENGWR 301
13 May 2017
Namesake
The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, tells the story of a Bengali-Indian family who tries their best to fit into the American culture. The mother and father, Ashima and Ashoke, are the parents of a newborn baby boy, who struggle to name their child after a failed telegram attempt to the Ashima’s grandmother who had the honor of naming him. The parents decide on the name of Gogol, based on Ashoke’s literary idol. Throughout Gogol’s life he betrays all the conflicts of honoring his Indian heritage and tradition in the United States, and these conflicts will haunt him on his winding path of his childhood and life. Jhumpa Lahiri reveals that between the struggles and experiences of immigrants …show more content…
He continues to reiterate that, “It’s everything that matters in a name” and his struggles with his pet name and good name can be explained with the following quote. “For by now, he’s come to hate questions pertaining to his name, hates having to constancy to explain. He hates that his name is both absurd and obscure, that it has nothing to do with who he is, that is neither Indian nor American but full of things Russian” (Raj). The naming process is the first issue that occurs and leads to a loss of identity. When Gogol starts school, they try to give him a new name, “Nikhil”, but he refuses to respond to to his new name. This was Gogol’s first attempt in rejecting a sense of a dual identity, and this rejections leaves him with the name of Gogol. As he grows up, he begins to understand how uncommon his name actually is, and this creates problems in his identity as he approaches adulthood. Eventually when comes figures out how his name came to be, he desperately tries to get rid of it. Gogol states that his name “sounds ludicrous to his ears, lacking dignity of gravity” (Lahiri 76). He does not want to read his own name, Nikolai Gogol because he thinks it “would mean paying tribute to his namesake, accepting it somehow” (Lahiri 92). These quotes directly from Gogol show his frustration with his name and show his lack of identity. He’s not sure where he fits in in American cultural, and having such a peculiar name like Gogol is making him feel alienated by the American society. Gogol is just trying to blend in with the American culture, but feels as if his name is hindering this process. Jhumpa Lahiri, the author of the Namesake, went through some similar experiences growing up, struggling with her good name and pet name. She described her experience as “It bothers me less now. But it bothered me growing up, the feeling that there was no single place to which I fully
Professor Sapra
ENGWR 301
13 May 2017
Namesake
The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, tells the story of a Bengali-Indian family who tries their best to fit into the American culture. The mother and father, Ashima and Ashoke, are the parents of a newborn baby boy, who struggle to name their child after a failed telegram attempt to the Ashima’s grandmother who had the honor of naming him. The parents decide on the name of Gogol, based on Ashoke’s literary idol. Throughout Gogol’s life he betrays all the conflicts of honoring his Indian heritage and tradition in the United States, and these conflicts will haunt him on his winding path of his childhood and life. Jhumpa Lahiri reveals that between the struggles and experiences of immigrants …show more content…
He continues to reiterate that, “It’s everything that matters in a name” and his struggles with his pet name and good name can be explained with the following quote. “For by now, he’s come to hate questions pertaining to his name, hates having to constancy to explain. He hates that his name is both absurd and obscure, that it has nothing to do with who he is, that is neither Indian nor American but full of things Russian” (Raj). The naming process is the first issue that occurs and leads to a loss of identity. When Gogol starts school, they try to give him a new name, “Nikhil”, but he refuses to respond to to his new name. This was Gogol’s first attempt in rejecting a sense of a dual identity, and this rejections leaves him with the name of Gogol. As he grows up, he begins to understand how uncommon his name actually is, and this creates problems in his identity as he approaches adulthood. Eventually when comes figures out how his name came to be, he desperately tries to get rid of it. Gogol states that his name “sounds ludicrous to his ears, lacking dignity of gravity” (Lahiri 76). He does not want to read his own name, Nikolai Gogol because he thinks it “would mean paying tribute to his namesake, accepting it somehow” (Lahiri 92). These quotes directly from Gogol show his frustration with his name and show his lack of identity. He’s not sure where he fits in in American cultural, and having such a peculiar name like Gogol is making him feel alienated by the American society. Gogol is just trying to blend in with the American culture, but feels as if his name is hindering this process. Jhumpa Lahiri, the author of the Namesake, went through some similar experiences growing up, struggling with her good name and pet name. She described her experience as “It bothers me less now. But it bothered me growing up, the feeling that there was no single place to which I fully