The Namesake By Jhumpa Lahiri

Stylistically simple yet thematically complex, thoroughly unique yet clearly universal, strikingly imaginative yet distinctly real, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake emotionally captivates the reader as it explores the cultural, generational, and personal conflicts faced by Gogol Ganguli, the son of Indian-American immigrants. As a young man, his father, Ashoke, nearly died in a train accident, breaking multiple bones in his lower body and temporarily developing paralysis. Before it occurred, he was reading an anthology of stories by the Russian author Nikolai Gogol, and later, when rescue teams arrived, Ashoke was able to alert them of his presence by dropping a crumpled page of the collection. Ashoke remembers this event for the rest of his life,
As Gogol enters his teenage years, he grows to resent his name, eventually opting to change it. The narrator remarks, “In history class, Gogol has learned that European immigrants had their names changed at Ellis Island, that slaves renamed themselves once they were emancipated...Gogol Ganguli does the same” (Lahiri 97). The references to “European immigrants” and “emancipated” slaves reveal that Gogol associates renaming himself with becoming American and acquiring freedom. To him, this act is not merely a rejection of his name; it is a rejection of his Indian heritage - his past. He regularly struggles to understand his identity during young adulthood, and this renouncement is an illustration of that. The details Lahiri includes about Gogol’s education thus depict a desire for freedom and struggle to fit in that her audience can relate to. She both develops him into a sincere character and investigates the complex ideas of culture and self-perception, painting an intricate, authentic picture of the lifestyle encountered by first-generation immigrants and demonstrating the thought provoking nature of this
Near the end of the story, after Gogol’s father dies and mother elects to spend six months a year in India, Gogol think to himself “Without people in the world to call him Gogol, no matter long he himself lives, Gogol Ganguli will, once and for all, vanish from the lips of loved ones, and so, cease to exist. Yet the thought of this eventual demise provides no sense of victory, no solace. It provides no solace at all” (289). Lahiri utilizes precise language to further cultivate Gogol’s character and delve deeper into the core concepts of her novel. The repetition of “no solace” and the use of the words “at all” emphasize that Gogol (now named Nikhil) no longer finds comfort in changing his name. He refers to “Gogol Ganguli” in third person - in effect, as a different person - conveying his belief that when he changed his name, he changed who he was. Lahiri’s careful word choice emphatically shows the evolution of Gogol’s thinking and communicates that one’s name and identity are inextricably linked. Furthermore, she writes that Gogol fears his prior name will “vanish from the lips of loved ones”, revealing that he has grown to appreciate it because his friends and family use it. When he renamed himself, Gogol realizes, he not only deserted his native culture, but he deserted those who