Gogol Identity In The Namesake

662 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Culture and identity ethnicity

One’s home often becomes an integral part of one’s identity. Since Gogol constantly struggles with his identity as a blend of both Bengali and American cultures, he also struggles to determine his home. It seems that he never truly feels at home, despite the great diversity among the places in which he lives. In The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri shows that one’s home and one’s identity are interconnected; consequently, Gogol’s struggles throughout the novel to determine his identity parallel his difficulty defining a home. One home in which Gogol lives is that of his girlfriend Maxine’s family, the Ratliffs, where he is truly immersed in the lives and culture of a wealthy American family. After just his first visit, Gogol immediately feels “effortlessly incorporated” into this “beautiful house” (136, 138). Due to both the Ratliff family’s hospitality and the grandeur of their home, Gogol is drawn into their lifestyle and he comes to believe that he feels at home there. However, by claiming to feel at home at Maxine’s house, Gogol rejects a large part of his identity, and his “immersion in Maxine’s family is a betrayal of his own” (141). Since he is not entirely accepting of the Bengali aspects of his identity, he tries to disregard this culture by …show more content…

The Bengali traditions comes from Ashoke and Ashima, while the American influences come mainly from Gogol and Sonia. The blending and conflicting of cultures in this home parallels the different aspects of Gogol’s rather complex identity. For most of the novel, Gogol avoids going to this house because he rejects most of the Bengali aspects of his identity. However, at the end of the novel, as he begins to become more accepting of all the parts of his identity, he realizes that the Pemberton Road house is the closest to a home that he has, even if he never felt that he truly belonged

Show More
Related

  • The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

    1230 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...o assimilate into the society by entering school with a more acceptable name, but Gogol refuses. The acceptance of the society has pressured him to change his name in college, and to hide Gogol from the society. Till the day Gogol understands the reason why his father chose to name him Gogol instead of an Indian or American name, Gogol experienced a lot of changes, as a second generation American immigrant. Gogol has been assimilated to different culture than he ethnically is. At the end, through family, Gogol has come back to his roots. Gogol was not given an Indian name from his Indian family or an American name as he was born in America, to emphasize an individual try to assimilate into a different culture, but in the end, he is still bonded to his roots as the person he ethnically is.

    Read More

  • Using two or three of the works you have studied, discuss how and to what extent the writers have shown the pervasive influence of the past.

    858 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...heir novels, The Round House and The God of Small Things. Both of these authors present ancient religious and cultural traditions – namely stories of the windigoo and the concept of Love Laws – as deciding factors in how the characters in their novels interact with each other and how the plots develop. Past events, Pappachi’s disappointment and Linda Lark’s abandonment, are shown to be important to the way that characters live their lives in both of these novels. In both The Round House and The God of Small Things historically prevalent struggles such as the ones between native and foreign religions and the ones between white people and non-white people are shown to be incredibly influential on the ways that the characters of the present view the world and those around them. In both of these works the authors show that the past is a massive influence on the present.

    Read More

  • Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Conclusion, the book Home of the Brave reflects Kek’s simple way of learning and adapting to a new language, culture, and experiences. From the content above, it is proven that Kek is lost between his identities and wants to be American in the same time. This is a very sensitive narration that covers most of the issues faced by new migrants from developing countries; from misinterpretation of appliances, to the hardships to learn English, and finally, racism.

    Read More

  • Personal Legends In The Alchemist And The Namesake

    714 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love in stories is often shown as the path to ultimate happiness, but love causes both protagonists to become distracted from their destiny. After meeting Fatima, a girl he falls in love with, Santiago loses his faith in the significance of his Personal Legend, declaring “I’ve found Fatima, and, as far as I’m concerned, she’s worth more than treasure” (Coelho 123). Santiago nearly decides to stay with Fatima and desist from continuing his quest. However, the alchemist tells him “You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love…” (Coelho 125). Love is not considered as the most important treasure and Santiago's own destiny has to come first. Fatima also urges Santiago to continue his quest, but Gogol’s girlfriend, Maxine, is less encouraging, even holding him back. Gogol deviates from his path to accepting his identity by dating her. Maxine is a typical white American girl, and their relationship distances Gogol from his culture. After Gogol’s father passes away, Maxine asks that he spend more time with her, but Gogol prefers to complete the rituals and follow Hindu traditions, leading them to break up. By conquering love, Gogol progresses on his path toward accomplishing his Personal Legend. The more selfish outlook on accomplishing one's destiny first before even love is a less common perspective shared by these stories. Love and Personal Legends both demand sacrificing what they hold most dear to themselves and accepting that nothing else can come before it, and one must choose to follow one or the

    Read More

  • Black Dog Of Fate Sparknotes

    850 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of Peter’s most vivid memories is of his Grandmother. He starts off his memoir with a lengthy description of her and her apartment, as if she were still alive when he wrote it. He describes her apartment as “mysterious and exotic after the suburban houses of Teaneck” (6). He seems to view her apartment as old fashioned (“it was a 1940s kitchen with long white cabinets, a white enamel sink, red-speckled linoleum cracking at the seams, and a coiled buzzing fluorescent light on the ceiling” (7)) and different then the houses he is used to in suburbia. Her apartment seems to be laced with Armenian culture compared to his Americanized home back in Teaneck.

    Read More

  • Esperanza's Journey: The House on Mango Street

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel’s heroine and narrator, Esperanza, is a Mexican girl. She has a big family of six members: her parents, two brothers whose names are Carlos and Kiki, and her sister, Nenny. They lived in America, in different houses that required them to move around each year. When the pipes in their previous apartment broke and the landlord refused to fix them, Esperanza and her family moved to the house on Mango Street, which is owned by them so that they do not have any subject related to landlords or other people sharing the place. However, the house was not as good as they expected, and despite the fact that her parents said they would move out soon, she doubted that it would not be only temporary. The house on Mango Street was an improvement from the previous one, but it was still not the house that Esperanza wanted to claim as hers. She

    Read More

  • Gogol's Identity In The Book Namesake By Jhumpa Lahiri

    743 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gogol basically grows up his whole life not feeling comfortable with his identity and who he is. Gogol doesn't feel like he belongs in his parents Bengali family, and he somewhat feels like he is living in between cultures sometimes. Growing up in America has made him feel like an outsider because his parents were always doing things in their culture. Throughout the book Gogol makes great efforts to find out who he really is and he does that by moving away from home. Gogol’s definition of home changes whether it's by getting a new girlfriend or moving to a new place he's not familiar with.

    Read More

  • Home: The House of Usher and The Yellow PAper

    1668 Words  | 4 Pages

    A person’s home is a good representation of himself or herself. The way one takes care of their home can tell a story about the owner of the home and its residence. The members of the home may also affect the situations that take place, creating good or bad circumstances. In a story, a character's home does just that. The more or less elaborate it is explained, the more detail is presented about how the character is or will be. In “The House of Usher” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the elaborate descriptions of the characters and their homes set the story and can predict the outcome. A writer’s home and view of life may have a profound impact on their idea of home and therefore their writing that is produced.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Women In The Yellow Wallpaper

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Story begins with a description of the house. The house in itself is a symbol of isolation women faced in the nineteenth-century. The protagonist describes the house as isolated and miles away from the village, but also described as “the most beautiful place” (Gilman 217). During the nineteenth-century, women were in a sense isolated from society, just like the house. The role of the women was to stay home and tend to the

    Read More

  • Digression in Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls

    1712 Words  | 4 Pages

    Nikolai Gogol's masterpiece novel, Dead Souls, remains faithful to the Gogolian tradition in terms of absurdity, lavish detail, and abundant digressions. Although these three literary techniques coexist, interact, and augment each other-the focus of this analysis is to examine how Gogol (or the narrator) deviates from the plotline, the significance of it, and what aesthetic purpose comes from the digression.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Identity In 'The Namesake In The Namesake'

    1001 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gogol is not completely cut off from his roots and identity. He tries to reject his past, but it makes him stranger to himself. He fears to be discovered. With the rejection of Gogol’s name, Lahiri rejects the immigrant identity maintained by his parents. But this outward change fails to give him inner satisfaction.

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

    1424 Words  | 3 Pages

    Over the course of the novel, The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol is constantly moving, and by the time he is in his late twenties, he has already lived in five different homes, while his mother, Ashima has lived in only five houses her entire life. Each time Gogol moves, he travels farther away from his childhood home on Pemberton Road, symbolizing his search for identity and his desire to further himself from his family and Bengali culture. Alternatively, Ashima’s change of homes happens in order to become closer to family, representing her kinship with Bengali culture. Ashima has always had difficulty with doing things on her own, but by the end of the story she ultimately decides to travel around both India and the States without a real home as a result of the evolution of her independence and the breaking of her boundaries; in contrast, Gogol finally realizes that he has always stayed close to home, despite his yearning for escape, and settles into his newly discovered identity - the one that he possessed all along.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Identity In The Jade Peony

    1240 Words  | 3 Pages

    Perhaps one of the biggest issues foreigners will come upon is to maintain a strong identity within the temptations and traditions from other cultures. Novelist Frank Delaney’s image of the search for identity is one of the best, quoting that one must “understand and reconnect with our stories, the stories of the ancestors . . . to build our identities”. For one, to maintain a firm identity, elderly characters often implement Chinese traditions to avoid younger generations veering toward different traditions, such as the Western culture. As well, the Chinese-Canadians of the novel sustain a superior identity because of their own cultural village in Vancouver, known as Chinatown, to implement firm beliefs, heritage, and pride. Thus in Wayson Choy’s, The Jade Peony, the novel discusses the challenge for different characters to maintain a firm and sole identity in the midst of a new environment with different temptations and influences. Ultimately, the characters of this novel rely upon different influences to form an identity, one of which being a strong and wide elderly personal

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Young Goodman Brown And Good Country People

    1050 Words  | 3 Pages

    Physical surroundings (such as a home in the countryside) in works of literary merit such as “Good Country People”, “Everyday Use”, and “Young Goodman Brown” shape psychological and moral traits of the characters, similarly and differently throughout the stories.

    Read More

  • Great Expectations: Pip’s Transition

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    At Satis House it is almost straight away made clear to him from Estella’s language, that she considers him to be inferior.  It is here that, he is for the first time introduced to a girl whom he is later to fall madly in love with.  It is here that he is referred to only as boy.  It is here that he forms his “Great Expectations”.

    Read More

More about Gogol Identity In The Namesake

Open Document