Victor Hugo said, ”The principles incorporated in the childhood of a man are similar to the letters cutting out on the bark of a young tree and growing together with him; these principals are the integral part of him”. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri tells how the main hero grows up and makes his journey away from and back to his cultural identity. The reader can see The Namesake is a story about one American boy, who is from a Bengali immigrant family Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli. According to some unusual circumstances his parents named him Gogol. This name would be unusual for a Bengali, American or Russian man. According to Bengali traditions, when a baby is born, he gets two names -- one "the good name", which is an official name that is going to be used in all official documents. Also this "good name" is the name that the person will use outside of his home, in public view. The second name is "the home name", to be used among family and close friends. In addition, according to the same tradition, the oldest family member gets to choose that certain "home name" for the newborn in the family. So as the story goes, when it was almost time for the Bengali professor to welcome his son to this world, he sent a letter to the family's matriarchy, the oldest of the family, who happened to be a grandmother living in Calcutta. Unfortunately this grandmother’s letter was lost. Without the name, the baby could not be released from the hospital, and the father, in great disparity, uttered the name of his favorite author: Gogol. Along with the name, Gogol is on the cultural crossroad at the beginning of his life.
Gogol in his early age is a very Indian child. The author tells the reader about family traditions such us annaprasan - rice ceremony, the first formal ceremony of Bengali babies lives centers around the consumption of solid food; panjabi - national male wearing; birthday parties; speaking in Bengali language at home. At this period of his life Gogol cannot see any cultural differences between his family and American society. Logically, that is because he is very small and his parents’ influence is very strong.
Gogol begins to adopt American life when he attends school. He accepts American mentality. He begins to compare everything that he sees outside with his family traditions. He adopts new (for his family) culture. As an example, Gogol perceives his father as a man or citizen of this American society, who should respect Gogol’s rights. For example, when father comes to Gogol’s room to congratulate him and leaves - “Gogol gets up shuts the door behind his father, who has the annoying habit always leaving it partly open” (p.78). This quote demonstrates how Gogol understands American value about private space and how this young boy does not respect adults, particularly to his father.
It is very hard to point definitely on the basis for Gogol’s rejection of his family and the beginning of his journey away from his culture. In his age teen years he becomes aware of humorous name. In my opinion, Gogol’s aversion of his name is the beginning of reprobation toward his father Ashoke and national roots.
When Gogol changes his name to Nikhil, he considers it easier to “ignore his parents” (p.105). Now he is Nikhil and he behaves himself in a new way, secretly for his parents. Gogol begins his own separate life as Nikhil: he opens a banking account, starts smoking, loses his virginity with an unknown girl. His relations with women are extremely unlike that of his parents and against his national traditions. Indian society is more conservative, especially in relationships between males and females. Indians have arranged marriages. Once Maxine, Gogol’s girlfriend, asks him if his parents want him to marry an Indian girl. His answer is “It does not matter what they want”(p.139). He decides to do everything in his life by himself. It is very typical for American society. However, Gogol does not feel comfortable to be Americans. He loses his past, because “the people who know him as Nikhil…know him only in the present, not at all in the past” (p.105). It seems like a split personality. He had eighteen years of life as a Bengali young man, when he lived with his family. Now he has a sense of freedom, but doesn’t feel it full-fledged.
The apogee of Gogol’s alienation from his family is the relation with Maxine and her family. At this part of Gogol’s life we can compare him to Meursault, the main character of Albert Camus’ The Stranger. As Meursault, who doesn’t want to see his mother before funeral, Gogol avoids contacts with his father even it’s possible to him easy. Googol is “alienated person” – “somebody who has become distanced or alienated from somebody or something”. With Maxine Gogol cannot imagine his parents in his life. He deliberately tries to break a connection with Indian culture. These very symbolic words about alienation: “… his parents cannot possibly reach him” (p.158) are not only about calling by phone. Gogol’s parents really cannot be in touch to him as his family and people who wish him the best. By this way, Gogol becomes really Nikhil, which means “nothing” in Latin.
The turning point in Gogol’s journey back to his culture is his father’s death. At this moment he sees how his girlfriend Maxine relates to him. He recognizes how far he has gone from his parents. Now he sees how hard his mother takes this grief. Gogol begins to value his father, but he died and Gogol decides to change his life. They are not very big changes like job, workplace or lifestyle, but very important things in relationship with his mother and sister. It is just time for relations, conversations, spending time together. This tragedy in Gogol’s life shows us how we need to be in connection to our relatives, how it’s so easy and at the same time important to find time for our own people.
The description of Gogol’s life sometimes looks like a short narrative academic work in sociology, but at the end we can see non-verbally marked conflict between son and father. We can imagine this conflict as a journey of a prodigal son. The Namesake ends by words “for now, he starts to read”. Lahiri sends us back to the beginning of the story. From a very young age, Bengali boy Ashoke heard one exhortation from his grandfather: " Read the Russians! Always read then Russian authors!" So he did, picking up from this grandfather’s bookshelf, those think books of Russian classics, in English translation. When the grandfather became to old to read and lost his sight, the boy read to him out loud his favorite authors, Tolstoy and Chehov. But as for the boy himself, he became quite fond of Gogol. And one day, when he was already a student, Gogol saved his life. He was on a night train, sitting in his train car, reading "Overcoat”, a book by Gogol. Suddenly there was a crash. The other man in his train cabin died, but thanks to Gogol’s book, and the fact that he was not sleeping, he lived. Reading the book saved Gogol’s father’s life. Why? Ashoke Ganguli followed the precept from his grandfather. If Gogol had chosen to be in close relation with his family, it would make his life happier. Now, at the end of story, following his father’s example would probably save Gogol’s life symbolically.
The name "Gogol", which nine out of ten American teenagers would surely mix up with the name of an internet search engine company "Google", in this novel by Lahiri, becomes the symbol of this inherited cultural uniqueness, which needs to be understood, mastered and adopted to the new country and to the new time. The Namesake is a reminder for us as the immigrants that we cannot go away from our culture, change our cultural heritage in this country. We have to keep our family background.
November 2007
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