The Namesake Essay

The Namesake explores the life of the Ganguli family across two generations and more than three decades, set predominantly in the United States. Written in third person, it gives us a wonderfully intimate and knowing family portrait.
Lahiri weaves together a variety of themes; the immigrant experience and the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, death and most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations.
The novel pits the loneliness of the immigrant generation in a foreign land against the dismissal of the native culture and heritage by the US born children.
The author presents the loneliness felt by immigrants in a foreign land vividly. Ashima experiences only the off-colour parts of her pregnancies and is deprived of the

“Two Hindu meals, please.”’; this one line from the book, subtly highlights the differences between the immigrant parents and the first-generation US born kids. Throughout the book, Lahiri explores the contretemps and clashes that arise as a result of the generation gap between parents and children, some generic and some distinctively immigrant. In the acceptance of American culture by Ashoke and Ashima, she underscores the sacrifices made by parents for the sake of their children.
As the characters grow, the transition in the narrative structure is smooth and seamless. The narrative moves through the years, often skipping a couple at once and yet it never feels hasty. Though the switches from one instance to another are quick-paced, they don’t seem abrupt.
But there are parts in the narrative which feel incomplete and leave the reader hanging. Lahiri skips through the parts where Ashima and Ashoke’s parents die, their deaths only being mentioned later on and fails to bring to the fore the loss felt by them. The change from Gogol not wanting to be known as Nikhil at the age of four to hating his name as a teenager of fourteen is shown in a sporadic manner and seems a little