The Namesake Culture

How would you respond to a collision in culture, would you completely change your original culture, modify it to a certain extent, or not make a single altercation to your identity? In The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol is caught in the midst of colliding cultures and responds by adapting to the host culture, the American culture. Throughout Gogol’s life, he faces an identification crisis and a crisis in balancing between the Bengali and American culture. Gogol slowly moves to the American culture and erases majority of his Bengali lifestyle and culture. In Gogol’s first few years in the American society, Gogol already had trouble with his colliding cultures due to his name. Gogol’s birth given name was Gogol but Ashoke wanted people at school to call him Nikhil due to that name being more American and easy to pronounce. But Gogol had no desire in being called Nikhil due to his current attachment to his Bengali culture and unfamiliarity with the new name, “He is afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesn’t know.” Gogol’s anxiety and confusion
He had adopted traits in the American culture that were seldom in the Bangladeshi culture such as drugs. “Occasional after-eleven parties with dancing and drugs”. Drug use in the Bengali culture is an act that does not occur and shows that Gogol is trying to fit in the American culture. Another custom that Gogol picked up from the American culture is dating girls. In the Bengali culture, relationships consist of marriage while dating is infrequent which lead Gogol’s parents desperately wanting him to marry a girl rather than dating them, “It only makes things worse when he says that marriage is the last thing on his mind.” Gogol’s absence of his Bengali culture was evident and it was clear Bengali culture wasn’t on his mind, but Gogol would rediscover his Bengali origins as he followed his mother’s suggestion of marrying a Bengali