Identity And Culture In The Namesake By Jhumpa Lahiri

Identity and Culture in The Namesake

In the present day world of globalization, with convergence of heterogeneous cultures and hybridization of identities, and ever growing transnational migration, geographical boundaries are becoming redundant. The definitions and ideas of ‘home’, ‘identity’ and ‘culture’ have undergone changes with spatial politics and its displacement, intimacy, inclusion and exclusion. This paper makes an attempt to understand the conflicts of identity and culture before the Indian diaspora with reference to The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri.

The Namesake narrates a story of perpetual dilemma faced by immigrants as they struggle to maintain their identities while trying to shake them off at the same time. The author goes

When she is about to give birth to her first child, her Indian ethnicity reminds her of the conventional social customs of the Indian Bengali Culture. The solitary atmosphere in the hospital makes her recapture the domestic life of Calcutta. She is the only Indian in the hospital with three other American ones in the adjoining room. She is "terrified to raise a child in a country where she is related to no one, where she knows so little, where life seems so tentative and spare." After giving birth, she says to Ashoke, her husband, "I am saying I don't want to raise Gogol alone in this country. It's not right. I want to go back." Ashima feels lonely and terribly alone. She feels lost in a crowd, without an identity in between two opposite cultures. She teaches her children the culture of her own country, about the relations with the relatives, about how they eat with their hands in India, but in the long run she knows deep inside that she cannot force them to do it or practice it. Ashima is often reminded of the words her family pronounced, "not to eat beef or wear skirts or cut off her hair or forget her family", but the second generation does not abide to these rules and lives an American way of life. Ashima, like many first

It is not “What’s in a name?” case here. Rather, everything is in the name itself. Gogol’s name is one of the primary reasons of his feeling of alienation. After his birth, selecting a suitable name becomes a problem for them as the naming process in America is very different from that of India. Ashoke names him Gogol, after his favourite author, Nikolai Gogol. A book of this author once saved Ashoke’s life and therefore he is emotionally attached with it. But this name which is the first identity of their son contributes the confusion of identity crisis. He does not understand the emotional significance of the name. His name “sounds ludicrous to his ears, lacking dignity of gravity.” When he enters Yale as a freshman, he changes his to Nikhil, which was also choosen for him when he had first joined school. No one is aware of his earlier name here. But “he does not feel like Nikhil” and a whole new dilemma cobwebs him. He fears to be discovered. Though he tries to draw lines between Gogol and Nikhil, it is not easy. Gogol struggles to carry the burden of these two names. He feels in-between. He is considered “America-Born Confused Desi” but he considers himself an American. His American friends, on the other hand, considers him to be an Indian. He realises that he cannot abandon the importance of either culture after the death of his father. He discovers that his identity is embellished by both the cultures. He