Gogol Namesake

“Home is where the heart is,” an old proverb affirms. But this did not always ring true in the life of Gogol Ganguli. In The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol was the son of Bengali immigrants who resided in the Northeastern United States. Gogol, many times, struggled with his identity, and one of the major parts of identity is the place one lives. Throughout Gogol’s life, he lived in several different houses and places, and felt differently about each one, fitting into some and feeling strange and out of place in others. At some times, he was living with his family, and at other times, with roommates or girlfriends. Gogol Ganguli toggled between contentment and dissatisfaction in the various places he resided throughout his life.
In Gogol’s childhood home, he experienced contentment. He lived in a new suburban home at address 67 Pemberton road. Gogol felt at home and comfortable there, even though the house and property were not finished and landscaped when they first arrived when he was four years old. For the first few months

Gogol lived in dorms with roommates during his college years. Gogol liked to be out of the house and on his own, without his Bengali heritage following him everywhere. In college, Gogol was surrounded with Americans: he lived with Americans, studied with Americans, and made friends with Americans. For all of his growing up years, Gogol tried desperately to escape his Bengali heritage, and consequently, “it [was] his room at Yale where Gogol [felt] most comfortable,” (223). Especially now that he had changed his name to Nikhil, he felt like a different person in college than growing up. He felt like he could be accepted into the friend groups at Yale and live without others in suspicion of his strange name. Gogol felt free here, like a weary desert traveler that had finally been able to cast his heavy pack to the side and take a long drink out of the cool, clear