Set over three decades, The Namesake describes the lives of the Ganguli family as they live in a country that challenges their culture and values. The family is separated by a generation gap; Ashoke and Ashima were born and raised to traditional families in Calcutta, but their move to the United States means that their children grow up adopting very different lifestyles. As the years pass, their firstborn, Gogol, displays a strong disapproval of his identity and especially his name, instead embracing the American culture. As he searches for liberty, many complications arise in the form of family and love life, leaving him with deep regrets and disturbing experiences. However, in the loneliness and quiet that surrounds him, Gogol is at last …show more content…
Before maturing into a man, Gogol entangles himself into a set of relationships, all of which are eventually damaged from disagreements and drifts. Nonetheless, in Moushumi, a Bengali family friend, he sees flawlessness and in a matter of months they are engaged. It is afterwards that he experiences disloyalty and discovers that a formal document cannot safeguard a relationship. This reality is better accepted by Gogol in the novel. For example, when Moushumi discloses to her friends that he “changed his name” (Lahiri, 243), he is “stunned” (Lahiri, 243) given the sensitivity of the issue, but chooses to ignore her. On the other hand, in the adaptation he confronts her angrily, stating, “What I told you about my name is . . . not just some joke!” (Nair). Later, after he realizes that she is having an affair, he is “strangely calm” (Lahiri, 282) in the novel, whereas in the adaptation, he aggressively grabs onto her in frustration. In this way, the novel stays true to Gogol’s character. He is one to internalize his feelings, and therefore never openly displays sadness in regards to his many break-ups and father’s death. As a result, the novel more realistically expresses Gogol’s response to his dissatisfying
To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic novel written by Harper Lee. The novel is set in the depths of the Great Depression. A lawyer named Atticus Finch is called to defend a black man named Tom Robinson. The story is told from one of Atticus’s children, the mature Scout’s point of view. Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, the Finch Family faces many struggles and difficulties. In To Kill a Mockingbird, theme plays an important role during the course of the novel. Theme is a central idea in a work of literature that contains more than one word. It is usually based off an author’s opinion about a subject. The theme innocence should be protected is found in conflicts, characters, and symbols.
The desire to learn about family and its history can lead a man to great monuments of nature. Scott Momaday is Kiowa in the blood, but doesn’t know the impact of his ancestry, what they had to endure, and how they adapted to the obstacles thrown at them. Scott Momaday decides to travel 1,500 miles to “see in reality” what his family went through. He writes this story with a mixture of folklore, myth, history and personal reflections. Scott Momaday uses nature as a main component of his story, incorporating different voices and his memory to bring personal vision into the story with different time frames to give the ultimate experience of the Kiowa and his family.
Poverty and homelessness are often, intertwined with the idea of gross mentality. illness and innate evil. In urban areas all across the United States, just like that of Seattle. in Sherman Alexie’s New Yorker piece, What You Pawn I Will Redeem, the downtrodden. are stereotyped as vicious addicts who would rob a child of its last penny if it meant a bottle of whiskey.
Unsurprisingly, the novel is a classic coming of age story which centers on a young man who is confused about himself and his sexual identity in his early twenties. This confusion about himself and his sexual identity is the driving force of his interactions with his friends and lovers. Moreover, this confusion about himself and his sexual identity also facilitates the conflict and unforeseen consequences which occur during the novel.
In a troubled household, the Nour El-Din family find themselves in a series of compelling moments in their lives where arguments about identity, religion, customs, and tradition ensue. Every time something terrible happens, everyone is out the door, and on their way home.
the progression of this novel. The changes she undergoes can be given to the fact the she was
routinely giving expression to what we have come to recognize as a family trying to assimilate to the surroundings they have decided to be a part of. The Namesake had taken the Ganguli family from their life of tradition in Calcutta through a transformation to a life in America.
Through two main characters author involves us in a specific business going on between Leo Finkle, a lonely rabbinical student, and Pinye Salzman, a matchmaker. In order to get a good congregation Leo supposed to be married. How a man, who was studying for six years and who never was in a company of woman, easily can find a wife? The same way as his parents did. He went to the matchmaker. It was not so easy for Leo to appeal to Salzman, because he hoped to find the wife by himself. He wanted to be in love before he gets married. But he resorted to help. It was a firs time when he turned his mind over. Pine Salzman, the marriage broker, represented the old generation, and respected the old Jewish tradition. Marriage is a very important part of a Jew's life, and the family is more important than the girl herself is. He does not think about love. It is possible to imagine how Leo was disappointed when Salzmen introduced the girls to him. "Sophie P. Widow. Father promises eight thousand dollars. Has wonderful wholesale business. Also realestate." "Lily H. Regular. Father is successful dentist thirty-five years. Interested in professional man. Wonderful opportunity." Moreover, "She is a partikiler. She wants the best." Leo's interest to Lily was aroused, and he began seriously to consider calling on her. Finally they met. She provoked him to say the strange, but a very capacious and valuable phrase: "I think, that I came to God not because I loved Him, but because I did not." But Lily didn't dream about him, she dreamed about an invented hero. After this date he turned his mind over again. He felt that he could not love a girl. Although Leo returned to his regular routine, he was in panic and depression from one thought: nobody loves him and he does not love anybody either. There was no bride for him.
Within the framework of familial lives of Bengali immigrants in the U.S, the novel explores and exposes the deep schisms behind the veneer of equality and uniformity in America, marked by its shopping malls, suburban housing, etc to a more poignant and startling cultural depths – a hiatus too wide to bridge. However, it is in The Namesake, her first novel that a sustained attempt is made to deal with these concerns of two generations of an immigrant Indian family. What emerges at the end of this deeply psychological study is the hybridity and luminal existence of the diasporic community, what with the ubiquitous conflict between strong ethnic ties and a matching resolve to settle down in the New World. In the process, the feeling of ‘neither there nor here’ spills over into the lives of the second generation also. It is a deeply moving and finely wrought family drama centred around the Ganguli couple, first generation Indian immigrants, whose experiences in the U.S. are pitted against those of their children, complicated further by the choice of name for their son-all of which leads to the clash of cultures resolving into a sense of hybridity and
The book, Keeper, by Mal Peet includes multiple themes within its storyline, but the one that stood out to me the most was how Gato loves and hates the Keeper at the same time. Throughout the story, the author is able to display Gato’s feelings both explicitly and implicitly. These parts are crucial to the story because they show how as Gato’s skills improved his relationship with the Keeper got stronger.
When Ashoke, Gogol's father, was a life, Gogol wasn’t like his name and he was continuing talk to his father to change the name an...
For thousands of years in many, if not all cultures, men have been dominant over women. For example, women need to cover their bodies and if they are even allowed to get a job, they are limited to certain fields of work. This is especially true in the book, Lost Names. Throughout the book, Lost Names, there are people and events included to show the reader what the book has to say about the relationship between men and women. That is men are more important than women in society, a man has the right to dictate a women’s future, and men are more suitable for war and violence than women.
Characters both a young woman and man, Nene and Nnaemeka, plan on getting married to each other in “Marriage is a Private Affair.” Nene tells him to tell his father of their plans, but Nnaemeka believes he won’t approve since she is not from the same tribe, Ibo. Nene did not like that someone would care as much about tribal background and so continues telling him to write a letter. Nnaemeka wants to tell his father in person instead, because his father sent him a letter in regards to his arranged marriage and of the woman whom Nnaemeka has no interest. Later, Nnaemeka and his father talked, he sincerely told his father that he does not want to marry the woman he chose, but the women that he truly loves and wants to marry. Once her attributes
The novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri details the life of Gogol Ganguli, following him from birth, through childhood, and into adulthood. Growing up, Gogol struggles with his unusual name because it is a constant reminder that he is different from the American society around him, and eventually changes it to Nikhil. Lahiri also uses the motif of names to craft a message about the theme of marriage in the novel: one must humanize and empathize with their partner in order for a marriage to be successful.
‘Though the letter was sent a month ago, in July, it has yet to arrive’ (Ch.2, pg.25), and during the span of Gogol’s life, has still yet to arrive. The letter not arriving on time leads to Gogol being named by his parents. For some, a name might seem like an assortment of letters, used to give a human some sort of identity in the world, no matter our name, some people always felt rather neutral about their given name. Gogol on the other hand, feels like he is an outlier in the world, his unique name, derived from Nikolai Gogol, the Russian author who wrote ‘The Overcoat’, causes this feeling of hatred towards his name, despite the emotional story that comes from his dad choosing the name. During a class, he learns of the real Gogol and realizes that ‘not only does Gogol Ganguli have a pet name turned good name, but a last name turned first name. And so it occurs to him that no one he knows in the world, in Russia or India or America or anywhere, share his name. Not even the source of his namesake.’ This feeling alone drives Gogol’s dislike for his name. Despite the dislike of his name, Gogol learns that the reason he was given his name was because the book that saved his father was written by Gogol. In the novel, names show a connection to family and nostalgia, because Gogol’s name is a constant reminder to Ashok of the train accident he was in, and