The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri)

In The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri provides an account of the Ganguli family, an Indian American family of educated, middle-class Bengali immigrants. Torn between two cultures and two worlds, the Ganguli's live in Suburban Massachusetts. Ashoke and Ashimi Ganguli have two children, Gogol and Sonia. The caste system in India impacts the lives of Ashoke and Ashimi, whose marriage is arranged, but in suburban Massachusetts such distinctions are undermined through the common ties of class and ethnicity. Nonetheless, for Gogol Ganguli, born in Massachusetts, reconciling his ethnic background with American culture presents a crisis of identity. Named after a Russian author, Gogol will become "Nikhil" in an attempt to forge an identity that is distinct from his ethnicity and distinctly his own. In The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri argues that naming is often a limiting process by showing how Gogol's effort to rename himself is an effort to resist the confining limitations of naming.

The issue of naming is a pervasive theme throughout The Namesake. Naming in Indian culture involves several names that have distinct significance. Bengalis often provide two names to their children, one is a pet name and one is a good name. As Lahiri (25-6) writes, "Bengali nomenclature grants, to every single person, two names. In Bengali, the word for pet name is daknam, meaning, literally, the name by which one is called by friends, family, and other intimates, at home and in othe

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is new name, Gogol engages in a freedom that is more encompassing than he ever found "Gogol" to be. The name frees him in many ways. It frees him from his family, who bestowed his pet name upon him. He has his first sexual encounter under the name Nikhil. He also begins to date American women while keeping his parents in the dark about his activities. With his new name, Gogol virtually becomes a new identity in his early adult years, "His parents have expressed no curiosity about his girlfriend. His relationship with her is one accomplishment in his life about which they are not in the least bit proud or pleased" (Lahiri 16). This emotional appeal is meant by Lahiri to demonstrate the guilt Lahiri feels when he does something he knows would displease his parents, despite his desire to break free from them as he matures. In other words, as "Nikhil," Gogol begins to live his life for the first time as his own person, exploring his own interests and distancing himself from what he found to be a confining life as "Gogol." Gogol is not the only family member to change his name to become more true to his own identity, for Sonia also changes her name to throw off the limitations of naming. Her bhalonam is Sonali, or "she who is

Category: Literature - T