Summary

The Namesake portrays both the immigrant experience in America, and the complexity of family
loyalties that underlies all human experience. Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, after an arranged
marriage in India, emigrate to America where Ashoke achieves his dream of an engineering
degree and a tenured position in a New England college. Their son Gogol, named for the Russian
writer, rejects both his unique name and his Bengali heritage.

In a scene central to the novel’s theme, Ashoke gives his son a volume of Nikolai Gogol’s short
stories for his fourteenth birthday, hoping to explain the book’s significance in his own life.
Gogol, a thoroughly Americanized teenager, is indifferent, preoccupied with his favorite Beatles
recording. Such quietly revealing moments give the narrative its emotional power. The loneliness
of lives lived in exile is most poignantly revealed in the late night family telephone calls from
India, always an announcement of illness or death.

Gogol earns his degree in architecture, but happiness in love eludes him. An intense love affair
with Maxine draws him into a wealthy American family, revealing the extreme contrasts
between American and Indian family values. Gogol’s marriage to Moushumi, who shares his
Indian heritage, ends in divorce.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s conclusion achieves a fine balance. Ashima, now a widow, sells the family
home and will divide her time between America and Calcutta. Gogol, at thirty-two, discovers in
his father’s gift of Gogol’s short stories a temporary reconciliation with his name and the
heritage he has rejected.
Relationships between Parents and Children
The theme of the relationship between parents and children becomes prominent, as Gogol grows
old enough to interact with his parents as a child. While Ashima is pregnant with Sonia, Gogol
and Ashoke eat dinner alone together and Ashoke scolds Gogol for playing with his food. He
says, "At your age I ate tin," to draw attention to how grateful Gogol should be for having the
food to eat. The relationship between Ashima and Ashoke and their own parents is also
mentioned when they find out that their parents have died; Ashoke's parents both die of cancer,
and Ashima's mother dies of kidney disease. They learn about these deaths by phone calls.

As Ashima addresses Christmas cards in Chapter 7, she is wistful that Sonia and Gogol did not
come home to celebrate Thanksgiving with her. Their need for independence is contrary to the
need she felt at their age to be near her family. Gogol begins to feel tender toward his father after
his death, when his attitude toward him while he was alive was generally impatient. As Gogol
drives Ashoke's rental car to the rental office of his apartment building, he wonders if a man
outside the building mistakes him for his father. The thought is comforting to him. He now
understands the guilt and uselessness his parents had felt when their own parents had passed
away across the world, in Calcutta.

The relationships between parents and children are introduced in Chapter 8 with regard to
Moushumi and her parents, who are Bengali like the Gangulis. Because she is a woman, they had
been presenting her with Bengali suitors throughout her teenage years, none of whom she was
interested in. This experience alienated her from her parents, since she did not want to take their
advice about whom she should marry, and since she resented them for trying to control her
destiny in that way.

The relationship between parents and children is prominent as a theme in Chapter 12. Gogol
considers what it took for his parents to live in the United States, so far from their own parents,
and how he has always remained close to home; they bore it "with a stamina he fears he does not
possess himself." He does not think he can bear being so far away from his mother for so long.

Name and Identity

The important theme of name and identity is introduced at the very beginning of Chapter 1, when
Ashima calls out for her husband from the bathroom. She doesn't use his name when she calls for
him, since "it's not the type of thing Bengali wives do." Their husbands' names are considered
too intimate to be used. In Chapter 2, the Bengali tradition of pet names, or daknam and "good"
names, or bhalonam, is explained. Only close family uses the pet name in the privacy of the
home, while the "good" name is used in formal situations like work. Ashima and Ashoke have to
give their son a pet name as they wait for the "good" name suggestions to arrive from Ashima's
grandmother, but the letter from Calcutta never comes.
The theme of name and identity is important in Chapter 3, when Gogol starts kindergarten. His
parents intend for him to go by "Nikhil" at school and "Gogol" at home, but Gogol is confused
and doesn't want a new name: "He is afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesn't know. Who doesn't
know him." As a child, he associates a new name with a new identity. Gogol is not bothered by
the unusual nature of his name until he is eleven and realizes, on a class trip to a cemetery, that
his name is unique. He makes rubbings of the other gravestones with names he has never heard
before because he relates to them. By his fourteenth birthday, Gogol has come to hate his name
and resents being asked about it. There are many different names for Gogol and Sonia to
remember for their relatives in Calcutta, "to signify whether they are related on their mother's or
their father's side, by marriage or by blood." At the college party, Gogol is reluctant to introduce
himself to Kim as "Gogol," so he says his name is Nikhil. It gives him the confidence to kiss her:
"It hadn't been Gogol who had kissed Kim... Gogol had nothing to do with it."
Ashima has never uttered Ashoke's name in his presence; the reader is reminded of this fact as
she signs his name to their Christmas cards. It creates a rift between Ashoke's name and his
identity, at least his identity to his wife. Even after Ashoke dies, as Ashima explains to their
friends what happened to him, she refuses, "even in death, to utter her husband's name." She does
not understand his identity as linked to his name.

Moushumi knows Gogol as "Gogol," and is surprised when he introduces himself as Nikhil at the
bar. It is "the first time he's been out with a woman who'd once known him by that other name."
He comes to like the sense of familiarity it creates between them. She still calls him Nikhil like
everyone else in his life, but she knows the first name he ever had, and that seems like a secret
bond between them.

Moushumi and Gogol bond over their Bengali identities and how they are a source of confusion
for Americans. "They talk about how they are both routinely assumed to be Greek, Egyptian,
Mexican - even in this misrendering they are joined." Neither of them thought they would date
another Bengali seriously, since it was something both their parents wanted for them so badly.
They know that their relationship will appeal to their Bengali parents, and they find this both
comforting and surprising; they never thought they would please their parents in that way.

The theme of name and identity emerges in Chapter 9 while Astrid, Donald, and the guests at the
dinner party discuss what to name Astrid's baby. Moushumi reveals to the guests nonchalantly
that Nikhil was not always named Nikhil. This offends him because it feels like a betrayal of an
intimate detail only she knew to people he doesn't like.

Language Barrier
The language barrier that is to be the source of much struggle for Ashima and Ashoke is evident
when they arrive at the hospital for Gogol's birth. After she has been given a bed, Ashima looks
for her husband, but he has stepped behind the curtain around her bed. He says, "I'll be back," in
Bengali, a language neither the nurses nor the doctor speaks. The curtain is a physical barrier, but
it represents the symbolic barrier created by speaking Bengali in the United States.

The words the American husbands at the hospital speak to their wives demonstrate the culture
barrier between India and the United States. They say that they love their wives and comfort
them with intimate words, while Ashima knows that she and Ashoke will not exchange those
types of words since "this is not how they are."

The language barrier arises as an issue as Gogol and Sonia grow older. Ashima and Ashoke send
them to Bengali language and culture classes every other Saturday, but "it never fails to unsettle
them, that their children sound just like Americans, expertly conversing in a language that still at
times confounds them, in accents they are accustomed not to trust."
In Chapter 8, after his date with Moushumi, Gogol makes the decision to speak to his taxi driver
in Bengali. He feels the impulse to connect with another Indian after having embraced his
childhood memories with Moushumi.

Alienation
The theme of alienation, of being a stranger in a foreign land, is prominent throughout the novel.
Throughout her pregnancy, which was difficult, Ashima was afraid about raising a child in "a
country where she is related to no one, where she knows so little, where life seems so tentative
and spare." Her son, Gogol, will feel at home in the United States in a way that she never does.
When Gogol is born, Ashima mourns the fact that her close family does not surround him. It
means that his birth, "like most everything else in America, feels somehow haphazard, only half
true." When she arrives home from the hospital, Ashima says to Ashoke in a moment of angst, "I
don't want to raise Gogol alone in this country. It's not right. I want to go back."

Ashima feels alienated in the suburbs; this alienation of being a foreigner is compared to "a sort
of lifelong pregnancy," because it is "a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling
out of sorts... something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of
pity and respect." Gogol also feels alienated, especially when he realizes that "no one he knows
in the world, in Russia or India or America or anywhere, shares his name. Not even the source of
his namesake."

The theme of alienation is tied to loneliness in Chapter 7, with regard to Ashima. She is living
alone in the house on Pemberton Road and she does not like it at all. She "feels too old to learn
such a skill. She hates returning in the evenings to a dark, empty house, going to sleep on one
side of the bed and waking up on another." When Maxine comes to stay with the Gangulis at the
end of the mourning period for Ashoke, Gogol can tell "she feels useless, a bit excluded in this
house full of Bengalis." It's the way he is used to feeling around her extended family and friends
in New Hampshire.

The theme of alienation appears in Moushumi's life, as she describes to Gogol how she rejected
all the Indian suitors with whom her parents tried to match her up. She tells him, "She was
convinced in her bones that there would be no one at all. Sometimes she wondered if it was her
horror of being married to someone she didn't love that had caused her, subconsciously, to shut
herself off." She went to Paris so she could reinvent herself without the confusion of where she
fit in.

Gogol feels alienated sometimes in his marriage to Moushumi. When he finds remnants of her
life with Graham around the apartment they now share together, he wonders if "he represents
some sort of capitulation or defeat." When they go to Paris together, he wishes it were her first
time there, too, so he didn't feel so out of place while she feels so obviously comfortable.

Ashima feels alienated and alone after showering before the party. She "feels lonely suddenly,
horribly, permanently alone, and briefly, turned away from the mirror, she sobs for her husband."
She feels "both impatience and indifference for all the days she still must live." She does not feel
motivated to be in Calcutta with the family she left over thirty years before, nor does she feel
excited about being in the United States with her children and potential grandchildren. She just
feels exhausted and overwhelmed without her husband.
United States vs. India
The tension between the way things are in the United States and the way things are in India is
apparent in the character of Mrs. Jones, the elderly secretary whom Ashoke shares with the other
members of his department at the university. She lives alone and sees her children and
grandchildren rarely; this is "a life that Ashoke's mother would find humiliating." As the Ganguli
children grow up as Americans, their parents give in to certain American traditions. For his
fourteenth birthday, Gogol has two celebrations: one that is typically American and one that is
Bengali.

The theme of the United States vs. India is apparent during the wedding between Moushumi and
Gogol. Their parents plan the entire thing, inviting people neither of them has met and engaging
in rituals neither of them understands. They don't have the type of intimate, personal wedding
their American friends would have planned.

The difference between Bengali and American approaches to marriage is clear in Ashima's
evaluation of Gogol's divorce from Moushumi. She thinks, "Fortunately they have not
considered it their duty to stay married, as the Bengalis of Ashoke and Ashima's generation do."
In her view, the pressure to settle for less than "their ideal of happiness" has given way to
"American common sense." Surprisingly, Ashima is pleased with this outcome, as opposed to an
unhappy but dutiful marriage for her son.

Tension between Life and Death

Ashoke decides not to tell Gogol about his near-death experience because he realizes that Gogol
is not able to understand it yet. This decision points to the tension between life and death:
"Today, his son's birthday, is a day to honor life, not brushes with death. And so, for now,
Ashoke decides to keep the explanation of his son's name to himself."

The tension between life and death is prominent in this chapter, especially as Gogol deals with
the death of Ashoke, his father. He thinks about how "they were already drunk from the book
party, lazily sipping their beers, their cold cups of jasmine tea. All that time, his father was in the
hospital, already dead." As Gogol takes the train from Boston back to his life in New York, he
thinks of the train accident his father had been a victim in so long ago.

The tension of life versus death is apparent to Gogol as he gets ready for his wedding. "Their
shared giddiness, the excitement of the preparations, saddens him, all of it reminding him that his
father is dead." His father's absence is apparent in contrast to the celebration of his new life with
Moushumi.

 the significance of cultural aspects of identity in The Namesake.

The cultural aspects of identity is extremely important to Gogol's transformation.  Cultural
identity is what provides the initial impetus for him to run away from in the first part of Gogol's
narrative. What it means to be "Indian" is something that helps to define Gogol's identity is
something that he runs away from.  In this light, cultural identity is something that is significant
because it helps to define an element that Gogol refuses to embrace. Through this, Gogol refuses
to see "his namesake," or his identity, as one that is understood through cultural means and
cultural differentiation.  As Gogol becomes closer to his family and his "namesake" with his
father's death, he strongly identifies with his cultural aspect of identity, embracing his own
"namesake" and the culture from which it spawns.  With Gogol's marriage to Moushumi is one
that envelops and surrounds cultural notion of identity.  Yet, the fact that this marriage falters
and Gogol comes to his own understanding of identity, the exploration of his true "namesake," in
a realm that is outside of culture helps to bring out Lahiri's idea that culture can play an
important role in helping to define identity, but its aspects do not solely characterize it.

What is meant by the word, "namesake" in "The Namesake"?

he idea of the concept of "namesake" is to convey a shared connection between names.  For
Gogol, understanding and coming to accept his own name is of central importance to the novel. 
The fact that Gogol hated his name for so long, his own namesake, is essential in the
development of his character.  Although he knows the story behind his naming, he fails to
embrace it.  It is only through his father's death that he has a firmer grasp of the implications of
his identity.  The recognition of the name is something that comes at the end of the narrative
when Gogol is alone and understands that the only thing he possesses that no one else can take
from him is his name.  The affinity he has for his "namesake" comes at the end of the novel,
when he starts reading work by Gogol, indicating a penchant for the writer like his father.  In the
end, "the namesake" is within Gogol and in what he embraces and how he demonstrates
character development and growth.

How does Ashima and Ashoke's immigration affect Gogol?

Ashima and Ashoke's immigration has a profound impact on their son Gogol. He grows up
surrounded by friends and peers who understand and move comfortably in American culture in a
way his family life hasn't prepared him for. He feels like an outsider, especially because of his
unconventional name; Gogol is neither American nor Bengalese. As he grows older he chooses
to use his public name, Nikhil, and works hard to distance himself from his family in his quest to
be American. He spends less time with his family, goes out with American girls, and anxiously
(and angrily) awaits insensitive comments about his ethnic and cultural background. He becomes
a part of Maxine's family until his father's death leads him to question his relationship to his
family and his culture.

It's impossible to say that Gogol's difficult beginnings are entirely the result of his parents'
decision to immigrate (no matter where you're from or where you've moved to, figuring out who
you are is tough)—but their move to the US did change the course of his life and set him on a
path full of questions and struggles with his identity and his relationship to his family.
Historical Context of The Namesake
New immigration legislation introduced in 1965 and 1990, which created and then expanded
permanent work visas for highly skilled laborers and students (like Ashoke), led to a surge in
Indian immigration to the United States. As a result, the population of Indian immigrants in
America increased ten-fold between 1980 and 2013

Abstract:

This paper is an effort to look into the dilemma of name and sense of identity and belongingness
The Indian Diaspora is a general term to describe the people who migrated from [Link]
has taken place due to historical, political and economic reasons including higher education,
better prospects and marriage. However, the migrated Indian community has showed greater
sense of adjustments, adaptability, mobility and accessibility. During the ancient times a large
number of Indians migrated to other parts of Asia to spread Buddhism and to trade. During the
British period, a major lot of Indians migrated due to misery, deprivation and sorrow to the U.K.
Africa and U.S.A. Migration was also in wave in the nineteenth century in order to flourish to the
developed economies like the U.K., U.S.A. Australia etc. It was a major wave as it gave rise to
immigration either to study or settle and it goes on till present date following the footsteps of the
succeed [Link] situation today is that the Indian diasporasare a well-known success story in the
in the U.K., U.S.A. and Europe. In the Namesake, Gogol’s parents Ashoke and Ashima belong to
this wave of immigration to the United States whereas Gogol is a product of the contemporary
success story of the Indian Diaspora in the United States.
Coming across two cultures, the first impression for a migrant is that of homelessness. As the
strong Indian roots does not allow him to mix and acculturate at once. Therefore, the Diaspora
Indian is like the banyan tree following the traditional Indian way of spreading strong roots of
affection. He spreads out his roots in several soils as that of the motherland and the one where he
migrates. He constantly tries to nourish from one when the rest dry up. Far from being homeless,
he has several homes, and that is the only way he has increasingly come to feel at home in other
land. The sense of homelessness every immigrant suffers is genuine and intense; but in recent
times it has been seen that this concept has been minimized and made less intense through their
social networking .Earlier immigrants suffer intense homelessness due to lack of communication
means. They had letters either to write or to receive to connect with family in homeland. The
letters receive at a long interval. Land line telephones were a luxury in India in the
[Link] an immigrant cannot avail the facility unless it is there in homeland.
Writers of the Indian Diaspora in English:
Diaspora Indians on foreign land expressed themselves best through creation of [Link]
it was possible only when a non-resident Indian come to the homeland and tells about his life and
struggle for settlement. Writers of Indian Diaspora wrote on loss of identity, feeling of
alienation, sense of adjustments, adaptability, and mobility and let the world be acquainted with
the position of migrants on a foreign [Link] of the Indian Diasporaconstitutes a major
study of the literature and other cultural texts of the Indian Diaspora. It is also an important
contribution to Diaspora theory in [Link] at the Diaspora literature in a broader
perspective it is seen that such literature helps in understanding various cultures, breaking the
barriers between different countries, globalizing and spreading universal peace. Good fiction
embellishes facts and adds interesting layers to hold readers’ attention and makes people aware
about the contemporary [Link] writing raises questions regarding the definitions of
‘home’ and ‘nation’. Literature, as a product of culture thus becomes the source by which we
would come to know about the global scenario and multiculturalism. It is also important to
question the nature of their relationship with the work of writers and literatures of the country of
their origin and to examine the different strategies they adopt in order to negotiate the cultural
space of the countries of their [Link] literature works as a channel to strength the bonds
between India in relation with the other countries at large.
The Diaspora features of homelessness, dislocation and alienation are well represented through
the character of Ashima in The Namesake…In The Namesake, Ashima, leaves her home country
(India) for America after her marriage with Ashoke. After settling there, she feels lonely in the
deserted area. It is a hired apartment where she begins her life. The life style of the owners of the
apartment is different from her Indian way of life. She passes the whole day alone in the
apartment as Ashoke, her husband is busy with his studies. In India, her life was filled with a
number of relatives but in the U.S.A. she finds no one to communicate .When she becomes
pregnant not a soul to give her suggestions. If she had been in India she would have been
accompanied by so many elder ladies to take care of her during the pregnancy period. When she
gives birth to Gogol, she cries because only she and her husband are there to take care of the
baby. Feelings of loneliness make her depressed and emotionally upset. She could not find any
solace from the new society: For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of
lifelong pregnancy – a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is
an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that
that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like
pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity from
strangers, the same combination of pity and respect. (49-50)
About the Diaspora writing Jasbir Jain says, “Language and cultures are transformed as they
come into contact with other languages and cultures. The writers who have concentrated on the
Indian Diaspora are V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai, Bharati
Mukherjee, Rohintan Mistry, M. G. Vasanji, Bapsi Sidhwa, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri etc.
They have tried to write in detail the issues of the immigrants like the identity crisis, racial and
cultural conflicts, sense of belongingness, loneliness and alienation. The history of immigration
is the history of alienation and its effects. It is but a reality that for every freedom (life in a new
land) won, a tradition(that of home land) is lost. For every second generation assimilated, a first
generation in one way or another spurned. For the gains of goods and services, a better life style,
an identity gets lost, and uncertainty found. The sense of the loss of the identity is the grass root
of Diaspora writings.
S. Naipaul first tried for Diaspora writing through his collection of short stories. It lays the
foundation for subsequent narratives of the Diaspora. As a Diaspora writer, Rushdie transcends
mere geographical and physical migration dealing with spiritual alienation and rootlessness. The
subject of Anita Desai, a remarkable novelist and proponent of a feminine sensibility, has been
solitude and alienation. She usually has dealt with personal lives of people in general and women
in particular. Bharati Mukherjee’s childhood memories harkens her time and again. All the same
it is necessary to realize the importance of cultural encounter, the bicultural pulls which finally
help in the emergence of the new culture. Diaspora writing elaborates issues such as
marginalization, cultural insularity; social disparity, racism, etc. as the migrants are in a dilemma
whether they should remain with old values with least interaction with the majority, or break the
barriers and get assimilated with the attracting new [Link] between the attractions
of home and those of the new, the migrants have a constant conflict with his self. His old world
is complete with myth and tradition; the new world order is flourished with thirst for freedom
and independence.
The Diaspora writers turn to their homeland in their writings for various [Link]
should remain the faithful representation of contemporary society. So, it is the moral duty of the
Diaspora writers to remain faithful while mixing the facts with fiction in their writings. They
would be considered, to some extent the flag bearers of the history of their time. Majority of the
Diaspora writers write about their own experiences, the problems they face while settling on the
new land. The Writers of Indian Diaspora, as William Safran observes: “Continue to relate
personally or vicariously, to the homeland in one way or another, and their ethno-communal
consciousness and solidarity are importantly defamed by the existence of such a relationship”
(Paranjape, 2001)
Features of Diaspora Writing:
The chief characteristic features of the Diaspora writings are the quest for identity, uprooting and
re-rooting, insider and outsider disorder. Diaspora led to flourish literature. Diaspora writers
were initially more autobiographical with references to the narration of self. At a later stage they
turned toward scholarly writings with studies on Diaspora. Tololyan makes a distinction between
these two types of writing by explaining that there are two discourses, named the emic Diaspora
and the etic Diaspora. The emic Diaspora refers to the Diaspora that talk about
themselves(autobiographical), while the etic refers to scholarly works on Diaspora. He further
states that, “[t]he self-study of diasporas produced representations and various forms of self-
knowledge,some embodied in quotidian practices, some in public performances and others in
oral and written archives and the thriving native language press of groups such as the Armenians
and the Chinese”. He is ofthe opinion that Diasporas in the emic discourse generally keep
making self-representations by referring to their selves in English. The other matter that is
significant in Diaspora studies, according to Tololyan, is the aspect of representation: “Who
represents diasporas—the community itself or scholars— matters.
The Diaspora production of cultural meanings occurs in many areas, such as contemporary
music, film, theatre and dance, but writing is one of the most interesting and strategic ways in
which Diaspora is supposed to dislocate the twofold ways of local and global and might raise
issues of national, racial and ethnic formulations of identity.
Diaspora writing has created a great significant place between countries and cultures. The quest
for identity or roots marks the Diaspora writing. Terry Eagleton writes in, The Idea of Culture
(2000) that the very word culture contains a tension between making and being [Link] order to
construct new identities of Diaspora writing theories are generated which further confer
boundaries that relate to different [Link] movement causes the dislocation and locations
of cultures and individuals harp upon memories. Diaspora writers live on the margins of two
countries and create cultural theories. The terms ‘Diaspora’, ‘exile’ alienation’, ‘expatriation’,
are synonymous and possess an ambiguous status of being both a refugee and an ambassador.
The two roles being different, the Diaspora writers attempt at doing justice to both. As a refugee,
he seeks security and protection and as an ambassador projects his own culture and helps
enhance its comprehensibility.
In spite of these kinds of differences most Diaspora writings reveal certain features that are
similar. We might call ‘Diaspora’ as social form, ‘Diaspora’ as type of consciousness, and
‘Diaspora’ as mode of cultural production. Majority of works discuss individual/community
attachment to the homeland and the urge to belong in the settled land and as a result of this they
reveal a hybrid existence as stated by Lau: “They are people who are as multicultural as they are
multi-lingual. They do not regard themselves as fully belonging in either culture, and have
practically evolved a sub-culture peculiar to themselves. They try to take the best from both
worlds, but suffer the sense of hybridity and cultural entanglement.”
Jhumpa Lahiri:
Jhumpa Lahiri’s fiction is autobiographical and frequently writes of her own experiences and of
her parents, friends, acquaintances, and others in the Bengali communities with which she is
familiar. Lahiri examines her characters’ struggles, anxieties, and biases to explain the details of
immigrant psychology and behavior. What Jhumpa Lahiri probably means to explore through her
work is the fact that the distinction between human cultures is man-made. Her writing is
characterized by her “plain” language and her characters, often Indian immigrants to America
who must find the way between the cultural values of their homeland and their adopted home.
Her abilities to convey the oldest cultural conflicts in the most immediate fashion and to achieve
the voices of many different characters are among the unique qualities that have captured the
attention of a wide audience.
Born in London, Lahiri moved to Rhode Island as a young child with her Bengali parents.
Although her family lived in the United States for more than thirty years, Lahiri observes: “The
way my parents explain it to me is that they have spent their immigrant lives feeling as if they
are on a river with a foot in two different boats,” she relates. “Each boat wants to pull them in a
separate direction, and my parents are always torn between the two. They are always hovering,
literally straddling two worlds.” She has experienced that her parents retain a sense of emotional
exile and she herself grew up with conflicting expectations.
It is very much appealing that Jhumpa Lahiri is the child of Indian immigrants and that she also
crosses borders when she migrates from England, her birth place,to the U.S.A. and became an
American citizen. In the Namesake, Lahiri’s experiences of growing up as a child of immigrants
resemble that of her protagonist, Gogol Ganguly. Immigration became blessing in disguise as
that makes her aDiaspora writer. In the Namesake, she reflects on the Indian Diaspora and
creates a narrative that reveals the inconsistency of the concept of identity and cultural difference
in the space of Diaspora. Jhumpa makes her characters very humble and down to earth as well.
Lahiri belongs to the second generation of Indian Diaspora whose ongoing quest for identity
never seems to end. Her characters bespeak the glory of common life, “I know that my
achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and
certainly I am not the first. . . . As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my
imagination.” (Lahiri, IOM 198).
The Novel-The Namesake:
The Namesake depicts the life and struggles of Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli,two first-generation
immigrants from West Bengal (Kolkata), India to the United States, and their American-born
children Gogol and Sonia.
Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, immigrants in America welcome their first baby boy into the
world. They require giving their son an official name to be on birth certificate and in order to be
released from their hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So they must break with Bengali
custom and Ashoke has got this one covered. He names their son Gogol, after the Russian
novelist. Apparently Gogol saved Ashoke’s life when he was injured in a train crash in India,
back in 1961. Gogol for him means books of the author and not the man himself.
The Ganguli’s eventually move to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they raise Gogol and, a few
years later, their daughter Sonia. Growing up, Gogol gradually realizes that his name is quite
unusual, and he really doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that at all. Annoyed by the Bengali
customs of his parents, Gogol totally embraces American popular [Link] Ganguli knows
only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.
Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with
conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. She reveals the defining power
of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents and the means by which we
slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves. The summer before he leaves to attend
college at Yale, he officially changes his name to Nikhil. Gogol is no [Link] but his
family calls him Nikhil.
Over the course of the entire novel, Gogol has rebelled against his name. When his father gives
him a book of short stories by Nikolai Gogol for his fourteenth birthday, Gogol tosses it aside.
Places and names are not important here. It is the cultural environment that counts. Gogol and
Sonia in particular feel the enticing pull of American culture, convincing their traditional parents
to “celebrate, with progressively increasing fanfare, the birth of Christ, an event the children look
forward to far more than the worship of Durga and Saraswati” (3.59), and leaning towards
Caucasian romantic partners as they grow older.
At the end of the novel, Gogol does not remain anti-Gogol anymore. He has started to come to
terms with his Indian-American identity. He doesn’t try to ignore Bengali custom, and he doesn’t
envy the American ways of his ex-girlfriends. He is saddened by the fact that his mother is going
to India soon, the loss of his family home, and finally, the loss of the personal, familial side of
himself that the name Gogol came to represent. It is in this spirit that Gogol finally opens his
father’s gift and begins to read. The novel probes into the inner psyche of characters and brings
out stirring and teasing sense of identity by clash of cultures.
The narrative technique is that we don’t get the story in chronological order. Memories appear in
the novel as they occur to the characters, so we get a sense of how the past and the present
connect. For example, the story begins in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1968, but Ashoke’s
memories of his train accident in 1961 do not appear until a few pages later in the novel.
Gogol’s dilemma for Name:
The title The Namesake reflects the struggle of Gogol Ganguli, son of Ashoke and Ashima,
Indian immigrants to the U.S.A. to get identity in the culture where he is born and brought up
with his unusual name. Names do have some meaning in India. A lot of practice is done when a
child is named in India. An Indian child generally carries two names, a pet name and an official
one. Pet names are for the family and neighbors and acquaintances. They carry or may not carry
meaning. But official names are kept with a lot of care and practice.
Ashoke Ganguli gives the name Gogol after the Russian author whose book or a page once had
been served as a savior of his life. He named his son Gogol for three reasons. Ashoke and his
wife are waiting for the official name to come from India as to follow Bengali tradition. They
have not thought of any name/s up till the birth of the baby as they are becoming parents for the
first time. They are required to give one name in order to be written on the birth certificate before
they release from the hospital. Indian system never demands such emergency as compared to the
systematized American system. So Gogol name is selected. They might think of it as a pet name.
At that time the parents were also not aware that it is going to be the official name in future and
that Gogol himself will have problems with the name in future. ‘Gogol’ never fits as an Indian or
American [Link] a child Gogol is used to of his this name so much so that when his parents
wished his name Nikhil to be his official name when he starts schooling that he is reluctant to
accept the new name and the parents got letter from the school authority that he should be called
Gogol.
About the controversy of name of Gogol, Lahiri says in an interview, “But I think that for the
child of immigrant, the existence of two names kind of speaks so strongly for the very
predicament of many children of immigrants. On the other hand, the problem for the children of
immigrants – those with strong ties to their country of origin – is that they feel neither one thing
nor the other. This has been my experience, in any case. For example, I never know how to
answer the question: “Where are you from?” If I say I’m from Rhode Island, people are seldom
satisfied. They want to know more, based on things such as my name, my appearance, etc.
Alternatively, if I say I’m from India, a place where I was not born and have never lived, this is
also inaccurate. It bothers me less now. But it bothered me growing up, the feeling that there was
no single place to which I fully belonged” (Book Browse, 2007).But as a teen he wishes to
change his school. After changing the name, there is only one complication: “He doesn’t feel like
Nikhil. Not yet…. But after 18 years of Gogol,two months of Nikhil feels scant, inconsequential”
(Lahiri, 2004).
He feels sandwiched between the country (India) of his parents and the country (U.S.A.) of his
birth. His father has migrated to the U.S.A. to make a career at MIT and in due course he had
settled [Link] had always tried to follow the Indian traditions, customs in America and had
found Indian,Bengali friends. The parents tried to maintain ties with their home country and tried
hard to inculcate the values of the home country in their children. Gogol is fascinated more of the
life style and society of the country of his birth. But the country of his birth also does not accept
him entirely and he keeps struggling for cultural identity which sways between two
[Link] finds himself quite a stranger to both of the countries – in India he is an
American and in America he is an Indian. Gradually, he starts knowing the uncommon nature of
his name which creates problems with his identity when he grows up. Gogol does not understand
the emotional significance of the name. He does not like to be known by a name which is neither
Indian, nor American, nor even first name. The name becomes a problem for Gogol, because he
feels uncomfortable with the Russian name. It makes him to detach himself from his family
members. When he grows up he changes his name to Nikhil and feels comfortable to mingle
with others. He can now live life in his [Link] goes far from home for further studies where
everyone knows him with his new name. He feels he has gained a new identity and slowly he
gains contact with some girl friends. But this too leads to a sense of loss of identity and later
when his father dies, his attachment with his home renews. The novel concludes on the day of a
send-off party to Ashima, where Gogol finds the book which his father presented to him during
one of his birthdays and looks at the name Gogol. The novel focuses on the problems between
first and second generations of the Diaspora community, cultural clash and mainly on the
identity problem faced by the Diaspora community.
The Question of Identity:
In the Namesake, the question of identity plays a vital role. Jhumpa Lahiri was born as
NalanjanaSudeshana. But as Jhumpa was found easier to pronounce, the teacher at her pre-
school started addressing her Jhumpa. In the course of time it became her official name. Jhumpa
Lahiri tries to focus on the issue of identity what she had faced in her childhood. The problem of
Gogol’s name symbolizes the problem of his identity. He wants to be connected to the strange
names in the graveyard when the students were taken to the graveyard for the project. He wants
to relate himself with American locale but his name hinders his way to be recognized as an
American. Nikhil replaces Gogol when he enters Yale as a freshman. Here nobody knows his
earlier name. He feels relief and confident. No one knows him as Gogol but [Link] life with
new name also gets [Link] transformation starts here. He starts doing many activities
which he could not dare to do as Gogol. He dates American girls. He shares live in relationship.
His way of life, food everything changes. But a new dilemma clutches him. He changes his name
but “he does not feel like Nikhil” (105). Gogol is not completely cut off from his roots and
identity. He tries to reject his past but it makes him stranger to himself. He fears to be
discovered. With the rejection of Gogol’s name, Lahiri rejects the immigrant identity maintained
by his parents. But this outward change fails to give him inner satisfaction. “After eighteen years
of Gogol, two months of Nikhil feels scant, inconsequential.” (105) He hates everything that
reminds him of his past and heritage. The loss of the old name was not so easy to forget and
when alternate weekends, he visits his home “Nikhil evaporates and Gogol claims him again.”
(106).He was Gogol when his parents call him on phone. He tries to put a wall between his past
and his present, but it is not easy.
Theme of Cultural Dislocation:
The immigrants are those who grow up in two worlds. They are culturally displaced for one or
the other reason and therefore the question of identity remains a difficult issue. Jhumpa Lahiri
believes that for immigrants(the first generation people), the challenge of exile, the loneliness,
the constant sense of alienations, the knowledge of and longing for a lost world are more explicit
and distressing than for their children.
Culture suggests the arts, customs and institutions of a society, state or nation. It helps to
distinguish certain people of a society, state or nation from other group of people of a society,
state or [Link] elements constitute markers of identity of a particular culture like food,
clothes, language, religion, music, dance, myths, legends, customs, individual community, rites
of passage and others. These are retained, discarded or adopted differently at different times and
places; but a feeling of oneness, a tug of the roots persists even after several years and sometimes
centuries.
’ The Namesake’ provides different models of life among people representing distinct cultures
and worldviews. Lahiri emphasizes not only the immigrants who leave home to make a new
home in the United States but also the endless process of coming and goings that create familial,
cultural, linguistic and economic ties across national [Link] characters live in between,
straddling two worlds, making their identity transnational. Cultural change is a major problem
faced by the diasporic community especially by the first generation people. When they try to
settle in a new place, they find several changes in the new society. It shocks them and they try to
cling to their homeland culture by following it strictly. In The Namesake, Ashima and Ashoke
find many Bengali friends and try to create their own community there. Often they used to throw
parties to their friends in order to meet them. They wait eagerly for such [Link] try to
restore their traditions by preparing Indian food, inviting Brahmin for rituals and so on. As
Wieviorka states, when a Diaspora community is “constantly rejected or interiorized while only
wanting to be included, either socially or culturally, or when this group or this individual is
racially discriminated, and demonized under the argument of a supposed cultural different” then
the individual or the group is embarrassed and this eventually “leads to a self-definition and
behaviors based on this culture and, eventually, racial distinction.”
In The Namesake, characters are constantly making comparisons between Indian and American
life. For Indian immigrants such as Ashima and Ashoke, many aspects of American culture are
foreign to them, and they also feel like strangers in American society. As immigrants, Ashima
and Ashoke create their own hybrid culture, a blend of American and Bengali elements. They
struggle to maintain certain Indian traditions, while adapting to American customs, such as
Christmas, for the sake of their children. Indian-American characters such as Gogol and
Moushumi often feel foreign in both India and America, as though they’re lost in between the
world of their parents and the world in which they were born. They often feel like tourists, only,
unlike most tourists, they have no chance of a homecoming. They, initially try to adjust with the
new culture and society into which they have moved. A sense of alienation, loneliness and
feeling of loss are inextricable for them particularly when news from India comes on phones.
Even though they face external problems of identity crisis, their own inner problems like
loneliness and alienation cause more suffering to them. They do not mingle with others in the
settled society. Their friends are Indians and Bengalis. But at the same time they are not willing
to follow the new land’s culture completely. At times, even when they live in the settled land for
a long time, they still consider it as another country. They celebrate Hallow in or Christmas but
because of their children. Their food on such occasions is all the time Indian. But the second
generations like Gogol and Sonia are affected psychologically. Gogol’s acceptance of his Indian-
American identity is reflected in his gradual acceptance of his name and its history. The reason is
that from the moment of their birth, they were brought up in the settled country and they consider
it as their home country and wanted to follow its culture and tradition as their [Link]
Namesake describes the cultural dislocation in detail. When Gogol mentions his stay in a room
for three months, it upsets Ashima. When Gogol and Sonia reduce their visits to their parents,
Ashima suffers a lot: “Having been deprived of the company of her own parents upon moving to
America, her children’s independence, their need to keep their distance from her, is something
she will never understand” (166). The practice of cultural difference between parents and
children of the Diaspora community cannot be stopped by either of them because they both are
born and brought up in different cultures and in societies.
Most of the second generation Diaspora, on the other hand, accept the land in which they are
born as their homeland. They are not happy about the way their parents live. It leads to several
kinds of misunderstandings between both [Link] Said rightly describes the concept
of cultures as something distinctive, representative of an exclusive to a certain group or nation in
Culture and Imperialism (1993) so as to understand the basic problem with such terms. In The
Namesake Ashima celebrates all the Hindu festivals and at the same time Western festivals for
the sake of her children. It shows the mingling of both the cultures. Ashima and Ashoke are not
bothered about Gogol’s relationship with the White girls. However, when it comes to marriage,
Ashima wishes her son to be married off to a Bengali girl. Said writes: Culture is a concept that
includes a refining and elevating element, each society’s reservoir of the best that has been
known and thought, as Mathew Arnold put it in the 1860’s Arnold believed that culture palliates
it does not altogether neutralizes, the ravage of a modern, aggressive, mercantile and brutalizing
urban experience….In time culture comes to be associated , often aggressively, with the nation
or the nation or the state, this differentiates ‘us from them’ almost always with some degree of
identity, and a rather combative one at that….(xii) (Said:1993).Today’s fiction celebrates
hybridity. A globalised culture has now evolved and it must combat with the world of
heterogeneous societies who do not wish to leave aside their historical particulars which give
them uniqueness.
Conclusion:
The Namesake deals with the life of Ganguli family between the two different worlds: the
Bengali and the American. They represent the world of Bengali immigrants who while
maintaining the customs of their homeland struggle to assimilate into main stream American
culture. Lahiri stresses the fact that for Diaspora people ‘home’ is a very flowing concept which
changes its meaning along with the prevailing mindset of the person. Question of identity has
remained a source of conflicts and has led to wars in history. But it is more important for those
who are grown up in two worlds simultaneously. In short, the novel is a guide of experience for
immigrant population of Indian Diaspora.
Through Namesake, Lahiri sends a crystal-clear message to people who are quite keen on
dreaming of settling with strong aspirations for a better future on a foreign land without realizing
that this displacement demands greater adaptability in terms of both climate and culture. The
dilemma of name cannot be solved by the name on record. The identity of the individual, which
is consistently affected by society, is something one has to discover through a process of
reflections and negotiations. The question of identity never affects when one is born on his
mother land. He is a son of a father who has a social status. He grows up among the same people
and society. He never bothers about his identity even if he goes to other city. If the same child is
born on a foreign land, the question of identity starts hammering. He is like an alien on a new
land. He is identified as an immigrant as he differs from the natives. The immediate sign of
difference is the skin color. He struggles to get an identity as a second [Link], is
therefore, a scattering of the seed in the wind, the fruits of which are a new creation and a fight to
survive. .Diaspora is all about the creation of new identities,spaces for growth, resolution of
conflicts and a new culture. Every Diaspora movement holds a historical significance, as it
carries within itself the core of the nation’s history. Diaspora is a journey towards self-
realization, self-recognition, self-knowledge and self-definition. There is an element of creativity
present in the Diaspora writings and this creation stands as a compensation for the many losses
suffered. The principle of Struggle to Acculturate in the Namesake simultaneity displays ‘the
core’ human predicament in the countries of the West and the East. Indian Diaspora writings
help in many ways and is a powerful network connecting the entire globe. Diaspora literature
helps in the circulation of information and in solving many problems [Link] helps to re-discover
the commonality and inclusiveness of India.
The Namesake works as a channel to strength the bonds between the different states of India and
of India in relation with USA and the other countries at large.
Indian philosophy describes that the world is a family. In this context multiculturalism should be
considered as amalgamation of various cultures, achieving the great ideals of world peace,
harmony, and universal fraternity.

Sejak liberalisasi kebijakan imigrasi tahun 1965,[2] jumlah imigrasi generasi pertama yang menetap
di Amerika Serikat telah berlipat empat[3] dari 9.6 juta jiwa pada 1970 menjadi 38 juta jiwa pada
2007[4] 1.046.539 jiwa mengalami naturalisasi sebagai warga negara AS pada 2008. Negara
emigran terbesar ke Amerika Serikat adalah Meksiko, India, dan Filipina. [5]