The Namesake Analysis

Gogol and Sonia’s hybridization into the American culture
Introduction
Jhumpa Lahiri's novel “The Namesake” is an example of immigrant narrative, which deals with the theme of immigration and acculturation. The novel discusses the traditional immigration topics of exile and its discontents, intergenerational differences, losses and acquisitions of the immigrants and their children in pursuit of the American dream. However, the novel's theme is not framed by the concept “American dream” only - a traditional cliche rendered within the immigration discourse - but rather focuses on what happens once the dream is achieved. Particularly, the novel explores the differences between the older immigrant generation and its children, who managed to realize their American dream, as well as the dual - or hybrid - identity of immigrants, who attempt preserve ethnic characteristics while being exposed to a foreign culture. The aim of the paper is to discuss the process of Gogol and Sonia's hybridization into an American culture and to demonstrate how the novel breaks the stereotypes about brown-skinned immigrant families, who are often considered to be outsiders, recasting them as cosmopolites and members of the foreign society whose national loyalties are flexible.
Main body
In order to achieve a deep understanding of the issue, the following peculiarities of the novel should be considered. The novel's narration opens from the perspective of Ashima Ganguli – the mother of Gogol, who is a protagonist of a novel and the “namesake” of the novel's title. The wondering narrative structure allows the reader to get immersed into emotional lives of several characters, still focusing mainly on Gogol (Friedman 112). The narration is shared by the two...

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...utes to rendering the idea of the original or single identity loss (Heinze 194). Both Gogol's name and identity were lost in the travel.
Conclusions
The novel by Jhumpa Lahiri demonstrates that children of immigrants do not always feel closely tied to their country of origin, but rather, they feel American, living both in the private sphere of their home in India and the public sphere of their American experience. The process of the so-called “hybridization” is manifested in the way how Gogol and Sonia live as tourists in their own home country. They act as translators of the two worlds, which do not threaten their identity, but rather enrich it. The author provides a new updated interpretation of the image of Asian-American immigrants, discussing significant intergenerational differences and constructing the complex identity of cosmopolitan immigrants' children.