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 fundamental principle of American life: independence. The nurse, Patty, comes to see Ashima to take her on for a walk. As they walk down the hallway, Patty and Ashima are deciding whether Ashima wants a boy or a girl and Ashima says,”[just] as long as there are ten finger and ten toe”(7). Ashima realizes her mistake as the nurse gives her a funny look, and she corrects herself, “ten fingers and ten toes”(7). Ashima clearly does not speak English fluently to be successful at communicating with Americans. As a result, the conversation between Ashima and the nurse is a little awkward. She fails to acculturate because she does not speak English fluently like an American would. She has to learn how to speak fluently in order to be a part of the American culture. Altogether, she fails to acculturate because of her fear to raise a child alone, not having learned how to be independent, and fluently speak the English language.
Ashima is the person responsible for her failure to be happy because she does not know what is expected of her in certain situations. In the hospital, she hears three women talking and thinks maybe one of them has had a baby before. She wants to ask them what the experience of having baby is. In the novel it is said that she, “wishes that the curtains were open, so that she could talk to the American women”(3). Ashima is making it harder to be happy when she knows she can ask the women what the experience of having a baby is like. She wishes instead of actually finding a way to converse with them in order that she feels more comfortable about having her first baby. It seems that she doesn’t know she is expected to make the first move in order to talk to them. Before the nurse comes in, Ashima reads the Desh magazine that she brought from India. “Ashima looks up from a tattered copy of the Desh magazine that she brought to read on her plane ride to Boston and still cannot bring herself to throw away”(6). Ashima reads magazines instead of reading books about the morals and values of the American life. If she did this, she would be able to apply her knowledge to her unknown environment. As a result, she will be much happier. Ashima and her husband Ashoke learn that they will be discharged the next morning. They also learn that they need to name their baby. Ashima is feeling lost on how to name her baby now that she learns, “in America, a baby cannot be released from a hospital without a brith certificate. And that birth certificate needs a name”(27). Ashima fails to be happy because she did not have a clue that a baby could not be discharged by the hospital without a name. The failure to be happy comes from not knowing what is expected of her in this situation. Before coming into America, she might have a little more knowledge if she did some research on what some hospitals expect of a mother before going home.
Ashima struggles to acculturate as a result of her fear of raising her child up alone in America, struggling to be independent and speaking English fluently. She is the responsible person for her failure to be happy because she comes into America, not knowing that a baby needs a name in order to be discharged from the hospital. There are many foreigners that come here and many struggle to acculturate. They don’t know what some American services expect of a person. For example, a hospital expects a parent to name a baby before he or she is discharged. Also, like Ashima, some of them move without their families and they fear independence. Many foreigners would be able to relate to this book.