...“A sense of belonging is closely associated with identity, and names are crucial to identity.” ------------------------------------------------- A sense of belonging is made up of various elements, a secure identity being of them. Lahiri questions where is one’s identity found? Is it in their name, their heritage and culture or in their past or present? The Namesake represents identity as one fluid concept and a sense of belonging is closely associated with identity because it is the meaning of the names that can shape the individual’s identity and the clash of cultures can influence the how the individual searches for identity within their name. When Ashima and Ashoke first move to America as immigrants, it is nothing but a learning curve for them as they try and settle into a foreign country where they are faced with cultural differences; and Gogol being the first born is faced with the difficulty of living almost like a test subject as his parents try to master juggling their Bengali heritage and American culture. “They’ve learned their lesson after Gogol…for their daughter, a good name and pet name are one and the same.” This affects Gogol’s sense of belonging and identity as the lesson Ashima and Ashoke have learned prepared them for the challenges of raising their second child, who finds more success in navigating America as a Bengali leading to her finding a secure identity; while Gogol is left with the initial confusions his parents experienced, causing him to feel...
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...Arielle Blumberg Mr. Pei English 4A 16 October 2014 Acculturation “The Namesake”, by Jhumpa Lahiri is a novel that focuses on how Ashima, a woman from India, is coping with the American ways of life. Ashima struggles to enjoy life in America as a new mother to be without her relatives present. Ashima fails to acculturate as a new mother and fails to be happy because she has no knowledge of what is expected of her in America. Ashima is in the hospital, expecting a baby, and she has a hard time acculturating to her surroundings. She lies on the hospital bed, thinking about her family back home and how she will raise a child without her family. Lahiri describes Ashima’s emotions as Ashima thinks about raising a baby in the U.S. all alone,”She is terrified to raise a child in a country where she is related to no one”(6).Ashima is having a hard time because of her fear to raise a baby in an unknown world. That fear seems to be helping her fail in acculturating into the American lifestyle. Another scenario, where Ashima is alone listening to the American women talk right by the curtains, outside of the room, she also realizes that she feels out of place sleeping alone. Lahiri elaborates to her readers on Ashima’s anxiety,“It is the first time she has slept alone, surrounded by strangers;all her life she has slept either in a room with her parents, or with Ashoke at her side”(3). Ashima, as described here, fails to acculturate because she does not understand the...
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...Bloomed or Doomed? Relationships can be rewarding, yet they can cause frustration and hardship as well. Though there are many types of relationships, each requires a dependency or interaction between counterparts. Many people have a different perspective of what ingredients are needed for a successful relationship or marriage. Some people think they can be compatible only with someone who is very similar to themselves, while others feel that opposites attract. Even though there are many variables to a successful relationship and marriage, there are some crucial elements that need to be constant. If those elements are ignored, the connection may be lost. Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories “A Temporary Matter” and “The Third and Final Continent” demonstrate the need for communication and adaptation between two individuals to have a successful marriage. Communication is mandatory in almost every aspect of life where more than one person is involved. It can mean the difference in any outcome if there is too little or more than enough. Communication can come in many forms such as verbal, non verbal, and physical. As every relationship begins with two strangers who come to know each other better through communication, a lack of communication can cause those who once knew each other to become strangers once more. In Lahiri’s story “A Temporary Matter,” Shukumar and his wife Shoba become very distant from each other after the tragedy of their stillborn child. They create as much space as possible...
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...A Stranger: “Interpreter” of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” exhibit a fine collection of short stories each with own original narrative and Lahiri’s sophisticated way of expression. An interesting point is that all the short stories barely have anything in common: each has a different voice, different main characters, a different setting, and a different kind of conflict. Nonetheless, the stories tie up together so well that they really do form a “collection” under same objectives: the “maladies.” Every story introduces characters with certain trauma and Lahiri shows how the characters cope with their own problems. Among nine stories, I would like to especially focus on two, “A Temporary Matter” and “Interpreter of Maladies,” and discuss what they have in common and how they relates to each other by sharing some fundamental factors. The two stories share numerous similarities: the couples have difficult time dealing with their relationships; it is described in detail how burdensome the life of characters became because of the problematic matters between them; the characters lack enough communication needed for solving their problems; and the children are centered on the incidents. The most significant and thought-provoking similarity is that there exists a figure or event that motivates the characters to confide their secretive and sensitive issue to another. In “A Temporary Matter” the darkness plays the role; in “Interpreter of Maladies,” Mr. Kapasi....
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...The Namesake Asian American Literature In any story, movie, novel, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, suspense or drama, there are always themes that signify the main elements of that selection. “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri, has many different themes that are brought upon the reader throughout the book and movie. Some themes that are related to this story are Identity, Relationships between children and their parents, Regret, Loneliness, Language, Expectations, Cultural Differences, Immigrant Experience, Values and Beliefs, and Death and Mourning. “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri is a novel that portrays the life of a man named Gogol Ganguli and how he spent his life being born and brought up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At birth, he was given the temporary name “Gogol” since his parents, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, were waiting on Gogol’s grandmother to send them the name that she wanted. This was done in Bengali tradition for many generations. During Gogol’s early childhood, his parents sent him to school notifying the Principal to use his formal name “Nikhil.” Now since he was just a child, he was brought up with the name Gogol and did not want to be called anything else. However, as he entered high school, people started making fun of his name. He slowly started to believe that this name is not the one he wants anymore and that he wants to change it to “Nikhil.” His father told him “In America, anything is possible, so do as you wish.(pg. 100)” The theme of Identity...
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...Arguably, New York is the center of American culture; cramped spaces, lots of pollution and strangers all around. His parents fear it, as it is foreign to them, unlike their Bengali culture. Gogol, in contrast, fears the Bengali way. During a rice ceremony for Gogol, the relatives present three objects to him. The three objects symbolize three different professions Gogol might one day have. Usually, “children will grab at one of them, sometimes all of them, but Gogol touches nothing. He shows no interest in the plate, instead of turning away, briefly burying his face in his honorary uncle’s shoulder” (Lahiri 40). Gogol, even at a young age, rejects the Bengali culture. Though a baby, him refusing to choose shows that he does not want any of those professions, and does not want a Bengali ceremony to determine it to begin with. Gogol’s confusion with Ashima’s insistence on the Bengali way only grows as he ages. One day, Gogol comes home from school with a tracing of a grave. Ashima is appalled, commenting that “only in America (a phrase she has begun to resort to often these days), only in America are children taken to cemeteries in the name of...
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...stories incorporates people of Indian drop, however in a combination of parts and conditions. A bit of the characters are living in India and some are Indian transients living in the United States. Lahiri examines the relevance of social regards and its criticalness at the individual level and what's more the more broad social level in her get-together of short stories. She has splendidly portrayed that social unions related with Indian traditions go about as a character marker and in addition masterminds individual, racial, sexual and social identities of the pilgrim subjects with the setting of social regards. Movement is a long trip with the express explanation behind settle in somewhere else. Everything considered, wanders are both physical and mental. India is a land that columns with the start of types of progress and yells under profound set up characteristics of disfavour. It is a place that is known for respectable laureates, world scientists, researchers and sages. It is in like manner a place where there is the darkest spots of deadness, tragedies, and inclinations. The country has developed its own specific lifestyle. The sadness, a profound sentiment trouble and excited partition that some of her recounted characters understanding, are adequately ordinary world over. Lahiri considers herself to be "an interpreter of energetic torment and torment". With a surprising comprehension, she plunges profound into the mental profundities of her characters and reveals their...
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...Nina Reed Jhumpa Lahiri is a realist writer of today. Her work is inspired by her experience as an Indian growing up in America and never quite fitting in with both her traditional Indian background and her new American community. Lahiri’s stories express her personal encounter with evading her Indian heritage. She involves in her work the everyday struggles of being stuck between two cultures and remaining true to one’s self. The majority of her stories incorporate her main character having an identity crisis. Lahiri herself, as well as some of her close friends, battled with defining her sense of self as well as how it affected her personal relationships. The author’s stories are relatable in a sense that it deals with the everyday struggles finding one’s true self. On July 11, 1967, Nilanjana Sudheshna Lahiri was born in London England to Bengali Indian immigrants. At the age of three, Nilanjana and her family relocated to the West of the Atlantic to Rhode Island. Because her name was difficult to pronounce, her teacher called her by her nickname, Jhumpa. It was only a pet name that her parents called her, but in America, it became the name she was called by her friends and teachers. This event would mark the beginning of her struggle to assimilate in America. Her father was and still is a librarian at the University of Rhode Island, which influenced her love of reading and writing. While growing up, Jhumpa was often conflicted between both American...
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...An inability to be at peace with oneself is a defining connection between the central characters of The Namesake and Into the Wild, written and directed respectively in 2003 and 2007 by Jhumpa Lahiri and Sean Penn. The notion of nomenclature as a means of redefinition is something with which we become familiar in The Namesake, as we observe Gogol Ganguli's ongoing struggle to identify with the Bengali culture of his parents, rather than the American culture in which he is immersed. Similarly, in an act of defiance against his family and the materialistic American society, Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild establishes a new identity for himself when he abandons all possessions and changes his name before venturing into the isolation of the Alaskan wilderness. Aided by devices, notably setting, symbolism, narrative technique, juxtaposition of minor characters and imagery, Lahiri and Penn endeavour to demonstrate the effects of culture, childhood and family, in particular, on shaping individuality. Diverse settings are employed by Lahiri and Penn to portray culture and its influence on the personas of the central characters. A ceremonial setting is common to both texts and foreshadows the protagonist's desire to retreat from his traditions. Gogol's 'annaprasan' is a customary Indian rice ritual for newborn children, who 'confront [their] destiny' by selecting a 'clump of soil ... ballpoint pen, [or] ... dollar bill' from a plate, respectively representing 'a landowner, scholar...
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...How Different Cultures Shape up the Psychological Upbringing of Lilia Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” is a beautiful story narrated by Lilia, an Indian American girl who is born and raised in the United States where people are sheltered from foreign affairs. The story has taken from Interpreter of Maladies (1999), Lahiri's debut short story collection. The story is told from the first person perspective of Lilia, primarily in her 10th year, through the eyes of a child. Lilia—our narrator—is telling us all of this as an adult remembering her 10-year-old self. Clearly, Mr. Pirzada made an impression on her back then. In the story, the American culture has its major impacts on Lilia and kept her away from her own culture, Indian culture, until Mr. Pirzada comes. After meeting Mr. Pirzada, she becomes interested in her culture and history. Assimilation of Indians to America is one of the overarching themes in “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”. Lilia and her parents are on either side of a divide. Identity issues are typically compounded generation to generation. Though Lilia’s parents remember their own experiences in India vividly, Lilia is an American and therefore a step removed from the culture of her parents. Her mother is proud of her being American and she thinks that Lilia has “assured a safe life, an easy life, a fine education, every opportunity.” On the other hand, Lilia’s father is afraid of her isolation from her own culture. Her father asks...
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...Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian American author who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her book Interpreter Of Maladies. The book is a collection of short stories that addresses the topic of romantic relationships and marriages of Indian Americans, who are entangled in a new culture (the United States). Lahiri illustrates the nature of relationships throughout her book. She includes examples of love and tolerance. However, I believe that Lahiri puts the most emphasis in exploring the portrayal of romantic relationships as a type of malady with accompanying symptoms. One symptom that indicated the malady of marriage is the lack of communication. This is most easily seen in Shoba’s and Shukumar’s relationship in “A temporary Matter”. Their breaking down of communication is driven by their...
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...Italy however it serves as a symbol of hope for Gogol and the rebellion he wishes he had to end the relationship and live his ideal life. Chapter 12- This chapter commences with Gogol and Moushumi celebrating Christmas Eve while Ashima is making food which links back to how Chapter 1 started and illustrates the change and return of all human life and how it is a continual cycle. Lahiri brings back a multitude of early events causing the story to end as it began. Ashima decides to divide her time between India and the United States and spend half a year in each place. Ashima is cooking for one final celebration at Pemberton Road a place she considers home, however Calcutta will always be where her maternal roots are, the six months in in America will serve as an acknowledgment of her personal growth and motherhood on new soil, and as a recognition to the part of herself that was brave enough to do it. This chapter is very emotional but concludes with a message about the duality of life and the balance of positive and negative, beginning and end, the lost and still present. I believe Lahiri did a beautiful and impressive job with writing the Namesake and carefully juxtaposed the ending of the book for the reader with the beginning. I think it is interesting how for Gogol the story never truly ends which is also how the novel started. For example, in Chapter 1 Ashima is ready to give birth in a completely new land, and her and Ashoke have already been married for quite some...
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...An emotionally-filled and poetically styled collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth explores motifs including migration, identity, and return of the past, portraying the lives and struggles of second-generation immigrants. Lahiri’s exemplary use literary elements and devices allows the reader to visualize secluded and apprehensive persons, uncomfortable in their new abodes. However, in alluding to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s quote in The Custom House, the title of the book suggests that the stories should reveal the opposite—in that transplanting peoples to new soil might be beneficial to their mental, social and financial well-beings, creating a shift in fortune. Nevertheless, as a young child, Jhumpa Lahiri experienced similar feelings to her fictional characters within the literary work, struggling with a divided identity as a product of cross-cultural diffusion. Her knowledge of alienation and variance from the norm, adds depth to the conflict, strengthening the atmosphere and emotions surrounding the eight detailed accounts. Her grave experience as a child is reflected in her character’s frequent oscillation between two antagonistic lifestyles. For juvenile readers, Lahiri’s words describe complexities involving migration patterns, cultural issues, alienation, and generational differences, which is reinforced by use of imagery, numerous point-of-views, conflict, irony and diction. The first story in Unaccustomed Earth identifies the relationships and conflicts surrounding...
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...toll for Ashima as she has to live in a life that she is unprepared for. When Ashima gives birth to Gogol, she realizes how difficult it would be for her to raise her son in an environment that is completely foreign to her. Although she still tries to get accustomed to the new culture, she often finds ways to preserve some of her old Bengali traditions such as when she and Ashoke are deciding a name for Gogol or when they celebrate Gogol’s annaprasan. Gogol’s annaprasan was a way for them to keep their Bengali tradition. Unlike American culture, in Bengali culture there is “no baptism for Bengali babies, no ritualistic naming in the eyes of God. Instead, the first formal ceremony of their lives centers on the consumption of solid food” (Lahiri p.38). During the celebration, she would wish that “her own brother [was there] to feed him” and...
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...Lahiri's use of different principals for different chapters and sections of chapters allows the approach of dramatic irony. Reminiscence is frequent in Chapter 12, as Ashima prepares for the last Christmas party she will ever host at the house on Pemberton Road. She remembers when Gogol and Sonia were little, helping her prepare the food for these parties: "Gogol's hand wrapped around the can of crumbs, Sonia always wanting to eat the croquettes before they'd been breaded and fried." As Sonia, Ben, Gogol, and Ashima assemble the fake Christmas tree together, Gogol remembers decorating the first plastic tree his parents had bought at his demand. The difference between Bengali and American paths to marriage is clear in Ashima's judgment 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. 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...
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