The Namesake

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake follows the story of a rebellious Bengali boy named Gogol who struggles to find his own identity. While searching for a new identity, Gogol sacrifices his former self and conforms to the beliefs of those around him, causing him to become disconnected from his family and his Bengali roots. The choices that Gogol makes, such as his decisions to change his name, push away from his family, and disconnect himself from his culture, establish the themes of identity, family, and love that shape the story as a whole. Since he was a small child, Gogol has resented his family’s unique cultural traditions. Gogol carries this resentment throughout his life and constantly attempts to deny his Bengali roots so that he can embrace…

Children born in a foreign country often times wander their identity between their two origins. They are often times encouraged to follow their family’s traditions while that might look odd within their peers. They may not experience what their peers does on holidays, what they eat at home, and what language they hear the most. Their names may sound strange for local people. Jhumpa Lahiri, the writer of the novel The Namesake, is also a child of immigrants in America. In the novel, Lahiri…

“Try To Remember It Always” The Namesake Written by Jhumpa Lahiri focus on how Gogol affected by his father’s death. And through series of events Gogol is more familiar with his cultural. Moreover, he understands and willing to accepts his family instead of refusing to be a part of it. The sudden death of his father leads the breaking up with Maxine, the traditional marriage with Moushumi, and the book from his dad all contributed to change Gogol’s perspective to his family and culture. In the…

Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake” (2003) is a cross-cultural, ultigenerational story of a Hindu Bengali family’s journey to self-acceptance in Boston. ‘The Namesake’ explores the theme of transnational identity and trauma of cultural dislocation. The novel is a narrative about the assimilation of an Indian Bengali Family from Calcutta, the Ganguli’s, into America. The cultural dilemmas experience by them and their American born children are quite different. The spatial, cultural and emotional…

Few films capture the essence of being an outsider in a foreign nation, namely and Indian in the United States of America, and one of these films happen to be Mira Nair’s The Namesake. Based on the titular book by Jhumpa Lahiri, the story focuses on the difficulties of a Bengali family after migrating to America, and the conflicts their son faces throughout his life after receiving an uncommon name, Gogol, at birth. Despite having such a simple premise, The Namesake shows the significance a name…

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, is a fictional novel detailing the struggle of finding yourself in another country, and learning how to survive- while slowly becoming less like yourself as you adapt.The main characters are a Indian couple from Calcutta at the beginning, but it eventually changes to become their son Gogol after he reaches a certain age. Gogol struggles with finding his identity, believing for a majority of his life that it is associated with his name, which is yet another thing…

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri tells the story of a Bengali boy living his life and trying to understand the inner struggle he has with his namesake, while changing perspectives between the main character, Gogol and his mother. During the story, Gogol changes his legal name, effectively leaving his old self behind and replacing him with a new self, Nikhil. Although many may believe that Gogol does not go through jurassic change with this name change, in reality Gogol became an almost completely…

The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, follows the life of the Ganguli family and their assimilation into America and their struggles with raising their children in a new and vastly different culture. Gogol, the main character, was born in America by two Bengali parents, Ashoke and Ashima. Throughout the novel, Gogol struggles with developing his sense of self as he dealt with a clash of Bengali culture at home and American culture in public. His parents were staunch supporters of maintaining the…

In Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature like a Professor, Foster writes an entertaining guide of how to dig deeper into the metaphorical meaning of every piece of literature in hopes to inspire the minds of tomorrow not only to grow in their understanding of symbols but also to trust themselves and the knowledge they already have. In relation to Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, Foster lends understanding to such common symbols like sex not being at all about the actual act but representing the…

When a name is chosen for you, the name becomes your personality, appearance and you. In the book The Namesake, Lahiri compares Gogol/Nikhil's struggle with the struggle of growing up in two different cultures. America is a free country, which allows Gogol to change his name and be anything he wants to be. On the other hand, the culture of his parents and them giving him that name, is anything but free. The name they chose was chosen by respect and honor towards their homeland. The author…