The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Search For Identity
Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake was written in 2003, and was published by Houghton Mifflin. The book is set in second half of the 1900s, and chronicles the life of Gogol Ganguli. The novel is written in third person omniscient, the majority of it being from Gogol’s point of view. Lahiri details the struggle for identity of child born to immigrants. This is a great book for understanding the perspectives of immigrants in America, and the difficulty in passing on culture to their children.
The Namesake’s main character is Gogol. Gogol is the son of Ashima, his mother, and Ashoke, his father who have emigrated from India. Born in America, his desire to be normal causes a morphing of sorts to happen in his home. For instance, it is he, as a child, who introduces Christmas to the household in spite of religious differences (Lahiri 284). During his childhood, he is forced to make numerous trips back to Calcutta, his parents’ home, and resentment builds in him at his heritage. Throughout his life, he struggles with the name Gogol, because of how different it is, and changes his name when he graduates high school to Nikhil (101). The name Gogol was never intended to be permanent, but because Ashima and Ashoke were pressured in the hospital of Gogol’s birth, they picked it temporarily then. Later they were unable to change the birth certificate, and Gogol stuck. His father had picked the name because a few years prior to Gogol’s birth, Ashoke had been in a train accident, and had survived, with a story by Nikolia Gogol clutched in his hand (18). It is only right before Ashoke dies, that Gogol learns the meaning of his name, and that he comes to accept it (123). After his father’s death, and his failed marriage to a fellow Bengali woman, Gogol relaxes into his identity, and finally picks up one of his namesake’s books.
English and Ehrenreich cover in For Her Own Good, and in depth study on the “Woman Question”, and how their roles in society develop based on societal change (7). However, largely missing from their book, is the effect on immigrant women and their children. Lahiri shows through Ashima, how an immigrant woman comes to America and feels a terrible isolation from culture and from family (Lahiri 34). Ashima moves across the world with her husband, and stays at home. She feels a complete loss of identity, and only later recovers it when the family is able to make friends with other Bengalis in the area. Adrienne would suggest in her “Politics of Location” that Ashima as an immigrant, Ashima as a Bengali Indian, Ashima as a woman, all add to her identity, making her struggle more unique. This search of identity is later mirrored in her son, Gogol. Gogol’s Americanization in school, versus his culture at home clash, causing him to choose one over the other. Because of this, it is difficult for Ashima and Ashoke to connect with their son but with American ideals, such as pizza for his birthday, or Christmas.
Lahiri does a considerable job, striving to convey this separateness that pervades everyone in the novel. She switches from character to character, to create more rounded characters, and to give insight into motives. Each character’s thoughts are separate from the other characters, showing how even as a family, they are each individual. For example, when the Gangulis first move to America, Ashima becomes the centerpiece for a moment, and it is then when the reader discovers the loneliness that possesses her in a strange country, and a strange man. Lahiri pursues a new type of novel though, compared to the typical immigrant story. The Gangulis are not poor, and this allows for a more thorough assimilation for Gogol and his younger sister. The only thing left to separate them from the Americans are the different style names. Ashoke, too is developed, helping the reader to understand his place and his patience as a father to Gogol, as well as a husband. In the beginning of the novel, it is Ashoke that is revealing, creating a beginning and an end to the story with Nikolia Gogol’s “Overcoat”. Also on a final note, Lahiri’s specific attention to details on material things represents Gogol’s materialism as it grows and recedes.
Overall, The Namesake is a well written book that seeks to convey the separation consistent with American immigrant families in the second half of the twentieth century. The gap between Gogol and his parents is ever present, while they struggle to maintain their own sense of normalcy by using their traditions. Gogol’s sense of normalcy has been strongly Americanized, so his resistance to his parents is only natural. Lahiri is able to show a different type of American experience, that even in its separateness, is still very American while still very celebratory towards its roots.






Works Cited
-English, Deirdre, and Ehrenreich, Barbara. For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of Experts’ Advice to Women. New York: Anchor Books, 2005. Print.
-Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Print.
-Rich, Adrienne. “Notes toward a Politics of Location.” The Longman Anthology of Women’s Literature. Ed. Mary K DeShazer. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc, 2001. 1095-1106. Print.