The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri A Book Review
The Main Characters Plot
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is about an immigrant couple, Ashoke and Ashumi Ganguli, who start their married life in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The marriage is arranged by their parents, and the adjustments they make after settling in the US is enormous. Ashumi often becomes ill at ease, terribly missing the life and people she left behind in Calcutta. Yet she dutifully supports her husband, attending to his day-to-day needs like a typical housewife while he pursues his studies.
The Namesake takes off with Ashumi about to give birth, and she is gripped with fear and apprehension, not because of the labor pain that is about to engulf her, but more because she is terrified to raise a child in a country where she is related to no one, where she knows so little, where life seems so tentative and spare (Lahiri, p. 6, 2003). Ashumis sentiments mirror what countless other immigrants feel upon setting foot in a foreign land like the United States. Even as they look forward to the challenges that may come their way, many immigrants experience pangs of loneliness, especially those estranged from their immediate families, and later on, alienation, hardships and disappointments.
Notwithstanding her deep loneliness and homesickness, Ashumi treads wearily into the new environment she is thrust into, and assumes the combined role of mother and wife. Despite her babys birth, she feels a certain kind of emptiness at being miles away from her kin in India, whom she believes could have provided the emotional and social support she had deeply yearned for. In her quiet moments alone after her sons birth, Ashumi even muses that the babys birth, like most everything else in America, feels somehow haphazard, only half true (Lahiri, p. 25, 2003). It is as if everything has become a blur for Ashumi after getting married and settling to a new life in the US, and then facing the challenges of motherhood while her husband focuses on his studies that will lead to a good job to provide for the familys needs. Ashoke and Ashumis offspring is eventually given the pet name Gogol after the Russian author whose book Ashoke was clinging to when rescuers found him following a train accident during his younger years.
Analysis
Most immigrants go through many adjustments, struggles, and challenges. The Namesake depicts some of the struggles of immigrant-couples in the US. When the Gangulis settle and raise their children in America, they go through several adjustments and acculturation process. The struggles depicted in the book are mostly internal, though. The Ganguli couple is seen combining Indian beliefs customs with modern American concepts and practices.
Unlike other immigrants who suffer untold hardships and engage in backbreaking work in order to blend with mainstream society, the Gangulis seem to represent the middle-class family who survives well in America by taking advantage of educational and professional opportunities. Nonetheless, while they try their very best to maintain a link with their culture of origin and retain their Indian identity in a new milieu, the Gangulis knew early on that they also need to continually interact with their host countrys people, and understand their ways of thinking and behaving.
When the degrees to which individuals retain their heritage culture, on one hand, and involve themselves in mainstream society of the country of settlement cross, on the other hand, an acculturation space is created with four sectors within which individuals may express how they are seeking to acculturate (Berry, Phinney, Sam, Vedder, 2006, p. 306). These four sectors or strategies of acculturation are assimilation, separation, marginalization and integration. In the case of the Ganguli couple, the acculturation process took place gradually or with the passage of the years, when they have formed a family in their place of settlement. The couples acculturation strategy is integration, which is characterized by both cultural maintenance and involvement with the larger society (Berry et al., 2006, p. 306).
Assuming Gender-Specific Roles
When the Ganguli couple took up long-term residence in America, they assumed prescribed roles. Ashumi Ganguli took on the traditional role expected of females -- raising a child and looking after the family home. At first, she dreads it, especially with the lack of Bengali kin that can provide her warm and consoling support. During the early part of the story, Ashumi therefore faces two major forms of discontent being estranged from her family during a pivotal moment in her life, and struggling to identify with or meld with the western way of thinking and living. She learns, to adapt, even when remaining a true Bengali in words, thoughts deeds in the privacy of the American home she shares with her husband. Through interpersonal interactions with other Bengalis living in the US, the Gangulis reestablish a sense of kinship and assuage their longing for their homeland.
All throughout the early stage of her married life and even as her son grows up, Ashumi experiences an inner turmoil and continually manifests an ethnocentric quality of always comparing the values and way of life in the US to her native land. In effect, this magnifies her loneliness and alienation. It is only much later when Gogol turns into an adult that Ashumi learns to feel at ease with the American attitudes, behaviors and way of living. Over time, she slowly and steadily warms up to American things and ways of doing things, while not totally forgetting Calcutta.
Even with all these developments, Ashumi is depicted in the story as always following the role prescribed for a woman in the traditional sense a dutiful mother and wife who provides the emotional support and strives to maintain harmony in the home, even at the expense of her own happiness. Ashoke, on the other hand, takes on the instrumental or practical role of family breadwinner who focuses on achieving distant goals for the good of his family, while also striving to maintain good external relationship between his family and the social institutions in the country of settlement. In other words, he has taken on a functionalist approach.
Exhibiting Individualism and Collectivism
Ashoke Ganguli, upon close analysis, also exhibits a trait of individualism of valuing personal achievement and seeking to stand our and excel for his own abilities. The place where he has brought his wife, the US, is after all a country with a generally individualistic culture. Yet even if he has an individualist trait, Ashoke has not forsaken his Indian heritage. He continues to value his family, and understands the strong attachment of his wife to her family, too. Hence, he likewise retains a collectivist trait marked by adherence to customs traditions that uphold stability and reflect obedience or respect for ones culture. During the early phase of his settlement in America, Ashoke is astonished to find that there are people who prioritize work over family and lead solitary lives. One of these acquaintances even sees her children and grandchildren only a few times in a year, a situation which, Ashoke knows, his own mother will find humiliating if allowed to happen in India (Lahiri, 2003, p. 48).
While Ashoke manifests the collectivist trait, his determination and desire to be independent is respected and it is not considered as shameful. In effect, he succeeds in combining the best of both worlds conforming to the traditions of his culture and relying on his own hard work and efforts to move ahead in life.. The collectivist trait is usually exhibited by people from countries like Vietnam, China, and India. Ashoke, strikes a balance and considers both his individual rights, as well as group family rights as important.
The Importance of Name for Certain Cultures
Though they have taken residence in a foreign land, both Ashoke and Ashumi strive to conform to their Indian practices and traditions, like opting to uphold family loyalties when it was time to give a name to their first child. Much as Ashoke and Ashumi wanted to honor family tradition by letting Ashimas grandmother name their child, unforeseen circumstances prevented it. Because within Bengali families, individual names are sacred (Lahiri, 2003, p. 28), Ashoke and Ashima are taken aback at being asked to name their child after an immediate family number. Providing a name for the child, in a way, reflects how melding traditional ways with the new can be problematic.
Finding Ones Identity
The impact of culture on a Bengali childs consciousness can be enormous, especially if parents make a conscious effort to raise that child with the culture of origin intact. Unlike other cultures where children undergo religious ceremonies like baptism, Bengali kids first formal ceremony called the annaprasan -- focuses on consumption of their first food and grasping symbolic objects. Eastern belief in a cosmic force or manifestations of destiny is reflected in such a ceremonial event. With his parents and other grown-up guests hovering around him, a bewildered Gogol Ganguli is made to confront his destiny through the annaprasan at the age of six months (Lahiri, 2003, p. 40). It can likewise be noted that most conservative Asian families may exercise strong parental influence over their children.
As he grows up, Gogol Ganguli wrestles to find his identity. He spurns the name given by his father, and upholds American values while casting aside his Bengali heritage. He eventually tucks a degree in architecture, but goes through a series of failed relationships. He realizes the marked differences between two opposing cultures the Indian way of live and the affluent American life through one of the women he forms a special relationship with. Over time, Gogol Ganguli comes to an awakening and learns to define who he is.
Overall, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is a highly recommended book, written in an engaging manner, which depicts the immigrant experience bittersweet and challenging. The book illustrates what people go through to gain a sense of belonging in a foreign land.
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