The Namesake Culture

There are many factors that affected people to be what they are now. In The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol, the main character, developed from a child attached to his family to a teenager that often rejects his parents and their Bengali culture. As a young boy, he was very close to his parents, especially his mother, and would listen to them, but as he grew up, it eventually changed. He wasn’t as close to his parents as he was when he was at a young age. He rejected his family and his culture because he’s American and was used to American’s culture. To get away from his family and culture, he even moved to New York. As Gogol grew older, his relationship with his parent is different to when he was younger, but it would eventually change when
his father died. As a teenager, Gogol doesn't like his family and culture which the most important factor that led to Gogol’s change in his attitude towards his family and culture was his father’s death.
Gogol started to rejects his family when he started to hate his name.
He believed that his name is named after the author, Gogol because his father is a fan of him. Gogol blamed his father for the name “Gogol” and said that his father was Gogol’s fan and he wasn’t. Eventually, Gogol started to hate his culture because he thinks he doesn’t belong to that culture and wants to get away from it, so he moved to New York. In New York, he met Maxine and her family and in a short period of time, he immersed himself into their world as he moved in with them and followed their American culture. This situation of living with them made him grow even more apart from his family and culture. The life he gets now was the life he always wanted. He always wanted to live with American parents, so he can have freedom, have American's tradition and get away from his unfamiliar and annoying Bengali tradition. With his own parents, he always felt pressure and doesn't live happily at their side. In other words, Maxine's family is the exact opposite from his family since "(Maxine's parents) pressure (Maxine) to do nothing, and yet she lives faithfully, happily, at their side" (Lahiri,138). In his parents’ side, he's not free to do anything without his parents' approval and his parents are too strict on what's he's doing since they always check on him. Maxine's family is like the ideal family Gogol wanted and this caused him to reject his family and culture more. This attitude of his was changed when
his father died.
In The Namesake, in chapter seven, there was a dramatic shift in Gogol’s character when he knows that his father passed way.
Since he was a teenager, he has distanced himself from his culture and his family because he hated it and never try to understand it, but now he once again begins to embrace it. The most important factor that led to the changes in Gogol’s attitude was his father's death. Ashoke died when "a heart attack (occurred), that it had been massive, that all attempts to revive him failed" (Lahiri, 169). After his sister, Sonia, told Gogol about his father’s death through the telephone, he boarded the "first flight he can get" (Lahiri, 170) to go to the hospital to see his dad and that's the time where he started to change his attitude. His attitude toward his family had started to change because he started to understand his parents more when he now knows "the guilt that his parents carried inside, at being able to do nothing when their parents had died in India"(Lahiri, 179). After his father died, his attitude toward his Bengali culture also changed because he started to understand his Bengali culture when he "learned the significance, that it was a Bengali son's duty to shave his head in the wake of a parent's death" (Lahiri, 179) and understands that it makes sense that you have to "eat a mourner's diet" (Lahiri, 180) when someone in his family died. His attitude towards his parents and Bengali culture had changed in a positive way when he started to
understand it. In addition, Gogol doesn't distance himself from his culture or family anymore. He understands that it's his responsibility to take care of his family now since his father is gone and he can't distance himself anymore. It’s the time for him to be more mature, so he’s trying to accept and understand his family and his culture. During the religious ceremony for his father, he was asked to be "a priest chants verses in Sanskrit" (Lahiri, 181) which he quietly accepted it when he knew that it's his responsibility since he’s the only male in his family and doesn’t hate his culture anymore when he understands it. Gogol kept on changing his self- identity between the Bengali Gogol and American Nikhil, but now that his father passed away, he's trying to accept being Bengali Gogol when “he turns to the first story. The Overcoat.” (Lahiri, 290). The Overcoat was a book written by a writer called Gogol and was a birthday gift his father gave him when he was still alive, but Gogol didn’t read it and put it aside because he disliked his father for naming him after that writer and started to distance himself from his family and culture. In other words, now he that he touched that book and tried to read it represents that he is going to accept his culture and family and is going to embrace it when he understands it. Therefore, the death of Ashoke caused the change in Gogol's character or attitude towards his family and culture.
In The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri discusses that Gogol, the main character, developed from a child attached to his family to a teenager that rejects his parents and his Bengali culture. Gogol rejected his own traditions and family because he’s American and was used to Americans’ traditions or culture. To avoid contact with his family and culture, he moved to New York, but something changed all of this. His father’s death had shaken him and caused him to change his attitude towards his family and tradition. Now once again, he begins to embrace his family and Bengali culture when he starts to understand his family and his own tradition. Therefore, the most important factor that led to Gogol’s change in his attitude was his father’s death.