Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Namesake is the title of the first novel by Jhumpa Lahiri published in 2003. Like her short stories in The Interpreter of Maladies, the central idea of "The Namesake" revolves around identity, belonging, and the immigrant experience or foreignness. The novel intricately explores the life of Gogol Ganguli, the son of Bengali immigrants, as he navigates the complexities of growing up in America while grappling with his cultural heritage. Gogol's name, which connects him to his family's heritage, becomes a source of confusion and conflict as he navigates the complexities of growing up in America while grappling with his cultural heritage. The dynamics within the Ganguli family illustrate the challenges of maintaining cultural ties while adapting to a new environment. As the title suggests, names are significant symbols throughout the novel, representing personal and cultural identity. To grapple with his inner conflicts, Gogol changes his name. This name change reflects his desire to distance himself from his past, leading to deeper questions about self-acceptance. The novel poignantly captures the complexities of navigating multiple identities and the impact of cultural heritage on personal growth. Lahiri's exploration of these themes provides a rich narrative that resonates with anyone who has experienced the challenges of balancing diverse cultural influences.
Characters of The Namesake:
Gogol Ganguli is the protagonist of the novel. He is the son of Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli. Growing up in a suburban town in Massachusetts, with intermittent, long trips to Calcutta, Gogol quickly becomes conscious of the difference between his parents’ culture and the world in which he lives. He comes to hate the name Gogol, embarrassed by its unique oddity. When he turns eighteen, before leaving for Yale, he legally changes his name to Nikhil. Ashoke Ganguli is originally from Kolkatta. As a young man, he faced a train crash in India. He survived because he was reading a short story by Nikolai Gogol when the crash occurred, and rescuers saw him move the book in the wreckage. Ashoke moves to America to study fiber optics. He earned his doctorate from MIT and works as a professor in the Boston area. His pet name, by which he is known at home in India, is Mithu. His family arranges his marriage to Ashima. Ashima was raised in Calcutta and married Ashoke having only met him briefly. She moves with him to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and stays in a suburb of Boston to raise her family. She faces difficulties in settling in America because of cultural differences. She tries to maintain her cultural roots by organizing social gatherings of the Indian community in Boston. In India, she is called Monu by her family members. Sonia Ganguli is the younger sister of Gogol and the daughter of Ashima and Ashoke. As a teenager, she struggles with the divide between her American friends and her Indian background and moves to California for college. After her father’s death, she comes back to Ashima to take care of her. She gets romantically involved with Ben, a Jewish-Chinese journalist in Boston. Ruth is an English major at Yale who becomes Gogol’s first girlfriend. She decides to study abroad for a semester at Oxford, and then extends her stay over the summer. After her return, they find that they are not as close as they were before and they break up. Gogol’s second serious girlfriend is Maxine Ratliff, a History graduate from Barnard. She belongs to a rich family. Gogol falls in love with her effortless beauty and elegant, rich lifestyle and moves to live with her at her home. However, he begins feeling for his family after the death of his father and feels that Maxine is an outsider and soon they break up. Maushumi Mazoomdar is a young Indian American girl who grew up in London. She is a PhD student at NYU. While her family wishes her to marry someone of Indian background she romanticizes marrying someone from other cultures. Her parents arrange her marriage with Gogol after Moushumi breaks off an engagement to Graham just before their wedding. Like Gogol, she too struggles with her identity, family background, and surroundings. Because of their similar experiences, they come close. They decide to move to Paris where Maushumi begins an extramarital affair with Dimitri Desjardins, an old crush of Moushumi who works as an adjunct professor of German literature. She divorces Gogol when he comes to know about the affair.
Summary of ‘The Namesake’:
The novel begins in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1968. Ashoke Ganguly moved to Boston and began graduate school after barely surviving a catastrophic train accident in India. He barely survived the train accident. He was discovered by the rescue party because of the blowing pages of the book he had been reading when the train derailed—a copy of The Collected Stories of Nikolai Gogol. He believes Gogol saved his life in the train accident.
A few years later, his parents and Ashima’s parents arranged their marriage, and Ashima left Calcutta to join Ashoke in Boston. As the novel begins, Ashima is pregnant. She makes a snack for herself as she contemplates her recent life. Ashima was apprehensive of leaving India to settle in the US but after her marriage, she dutifully did so to accompany her husband. However, her life is not easy. She feels lonely and homesick in America, clinging to letters from her family and devising makeshift Indian recipes with the ingredients she can scrounge together. As Ashima feels labor pains, Ashoke takes her to the hospital where she gives birth to their first child. Ashoke and Ashima want to wait for his grandmother’s letter to suggest a name for their son. However, the doctor suggests that they should choose a nickname for the birth certificate of their son. Ashoke decides to name him “Gogol,” the writer whose book saved Ashoke’s life.
The family settles into life in Cambridge, with Ashima learning to take Gogol around on her errands. As the family prepares for its first trip back to Calcutta, Ashoke and Ashima learn that Ashima’s father has died suddenly. Their trip is shrouded in mourning. Ashima, especially, misses her parents and her home in Calcutta, despite the family’s growing network of Bengali friends in the Boston area.
By 1971, the Gangulis have moved from Harvard Square to a university town outside Boston. After two years in university-subsidized housing, Ashima and Ashoke decide to buy a home. The new house is on Pemberton Road, and there are no Bengali neighbors. On the first day of Gogol's kindergarten, his parents tell the principal, Mrs. Lapidus, that she should call Gogol by his formal name, "Nikhil." But she overhears them referring to him as "Gogol" and asks him what he would like to be called. When he answers "Gogol," it sticks. Ashima gives birth to Gogol's little sister, Sonia, in May. In the next years, Ashoke finds out about the deaths of both his parents and Ashima finds out about the death of her mother. They learn about these deaths by phone call.
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 culture. On Gogol's fourteenth birthday, his father comes into his room and gives him his birthday present: The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol. Gogol is more interested in listening to the Beatles than looking at the book, and he is unable to appreciate it. Ashoke tries to tell him about the train accident but stops because he realizes Gogol cannot yet understand. Gogol begins his junior year of high school in the fall. His English teacher Mr. Lawson knows about the Russian author Gogol and assigns the class to read one of his short stories, "The Overcoat."
The summer before he leaves to attend college at Yale, Gogol officially changes his name to Nikhil, but the name Gogol stays forever with him. He meets Ruth, an English major, and they date for a while, although he never introduces her to his parents. The next year, they break up. Gogol takes regular trips home to visit his family in Boston, and on one of these trips, Ashoke tells Gogol the story of the train crash that influenced his choice of Gogol’s name. Gogol asks him if he reminds him of that night that he almost died, and his father says no; he reminds him of "everything that followed."
In 1994, Gogol began working as an architect in New York City. He meets Maxine, whose carefree, intellectual parents represent everything his parents are not. He falls in love with the girl and her family. Her parents, Lydia and Gerald, are incredibly wealthy, and they interact in a casual but intelligent way that is totally opposite the behavior of Gogol's own parents. He begins spending most of his time at their home rather than at his own apartment, and he feels effortlessly incorporated into their lives. Meanwhile, Ashoke is scheduled to go to Ohio to teach at a University for nine months. Ashima calls Gogol to meet them before they leave but Gogol neglects. He visits them for a few minutes while going for lunch with Maxine.
One day, while Ashima was waiting for Ashoke to return home, he called her to inform her that he was facing stomach problems so he went to the hospital. After a few hours, she calls back and comes to know that Ashoke suffered a massive heart attack and died. Gogol travels to Ohio to collect his father’s remains and empty his apartment, then he returns to Boston to grieve with his mother and Sonia. He feels that his father died because of his neglect and is wracked with guilt. Maxine is sympathetic to Ashoke’s death, but she doesn’t understand why Gogol grieves with his family for so long. She tries to approach him but Gogol feels that despite all her goodness, she is an outsider to his family. They break up.
Ashima encourages him to call Moushumi Mazoomdar, the daughter of family friends whom Gogol has grown up around at family parties. She tells him that she moved to Paris to study French literature, and then moved to New York to follow her ex-fiancé, an American named Graham. After the fight that ended their engagement, Moushumi had taken the rest of the semester off from NYU and mourned, finally returning to school in the fall. It was then that she had met Gogol. Gogol and she begin to date seriously. They marry within a year, soon after Gogol’s 30th birthday, in a traditional Bengali ceremony organized by their families. Soon, however, Gogol realizes that he dislikes Moushumi’s friends and her desire to be someone different. Moushumi decides to attend a conference in Paris where she is invited to present a paper on her thesis. Gogol accompanies her on a vacation. Moushumi expresses her longing to live in Paris, but Gogol feels out of place the entire time. Two days after their first wedding anniversary, Moushumi comes across a resume at the university from a man named Dimitri Desjardins whom she had fallen in love with in high school. She meets him and soon develops an extramarital affair. However, she tries to hide it from Gogol. Somehow Gogol comes to know about her extramarital affair and they get divorced.
Ashima is living with Sonia who is having an affair with Ben, a Chinese Jewish journalist. Sonia and Ben have planned to go to Kolkatta to get married in the traditional Indian way. Ashima decides to sell the house and spend six months of each year living in Calcutta, and the other six months living in America with her children, Sonia and Gogol. She arranges for one last Christmas party at the Ganguli house on Pemberton Road. Gogol visits there to help his mother pack up the family home and prepare for her last Christmas Eve party. While packing, Gogol comes across the book of Nikolai Gogol's short stories that his father gave him for his fourteenth birthday. He sees the inscription his father has written inside: "The man who gave you his name, from the man who gave you your name." He takes his time while remembering his father and then begins to read “The Overcoat.”
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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