The Namesake Culture

The Namesake is a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, that focus on an Indian family that moves to the United States from Bengali, India. The characters adapt well to the new culture they experience but do not lose the aspects of their culture that separates them from natural-born Americans. In this novel, the Indian represented by culture acts as a ghost that manipulates the different turnouts of the individuals lives. Throughout the story we see a huge Indian cultural influence the causes the different characters of the story to act in a certain manner, creates connections and elaborates why they do some of the things they do even against their will.
The first example that shows India as a ghost is the way Ashima and her husband lived their lives. Their marriage is arranged by their parents but they didn’t have any fights which is very uncommon among American couples as they fight even when they marry the person they love. But in this novel Ashima was pretty much a stay at home mother who let her husband do all the manly things, bring home the income, pay the bills, make all the major decisions in the marriage. This shows that regardless that they were living in a very civilized country where men and women are regarded as equal they still followed the culture they knew from India and allowed the man to fully lead the household.
Another way we …show more content…
They socialize with their own kind, which causes them to follow certain trends. The biggest example of this is the name scandal with Gogol. The reason he adopts his pet name as a good name, another influence of the Indian culture, is because his parents were following their promise in allowing Ashima’s grandmother name the child they gave birth to. Even though the letter never made it there, the parents did not stop waiting or see the big deal in waiting. This in return caused Gogol to initially legally be named Gogol instead