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The Namesake Essay

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In Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut novel, The Namesake describes the ethical aspect of Indian immigrants. In the nineteenth century those Indian immigrants were migrating to the west directions as apprenticeship labourers. Now a day they migrate for the prospect of career building and also a way of profit manner. But in both the cases culture plays a significant role in their life. The immigrants were enjoying their life in economic subjugation but have an emotional emancipation in their contra-acculturation. The Namesake deals with the problems of Indian immigrants of Bengali origins in America. The immigrants were come across several problems especially in language, political ideology, cultural practice, and social adjustment. They do not have any …show more content…

The story begins as Ashoke and Ashima leave Calcutta, India to Cambridge, Massachusetts. The namesake is about the way various generation look at their native and foreign land. The first generation belongs to 1960s. They faced a lot of problems and trouble. They cannot easily to merge with foreign culture. On the contrary, the second generation practices Indian culture to pacify parents. But they live as American in their heart of hearts. Most of the diasporans intentional as choose to migrate to an alien country of their choice and also with the hope of living there. They were migrating to live a happy life. In the real life, they struggle a lot of problems for …show more content…

He gets a job, where he worked as an architect. Simultaneously he goes back to Pemberton road, because the home where his childhood had been spent. Now he again changed a Gogol because he loves the Indian dishes prepared by his mother and enjoyed. He was happy and content at this stage of life. At a party Gogol meets a pretty girl named Maxine and very soon develops a steady relationship with her. Maxine takes him to her home and introduces Gogol to her parents, Gerald and Lydia and observes the difference in their open culture. He finds burdened too heavily by the past and by India. He brings Maxine to visit his parents. He starts to live with her family and slowly becomes more and closer to her family. He starts to go on vacation with her family rather than with his family. He is spending most of his time at her

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This is the moment where his two identities, Gogol and Nikhil, begin to pull apart from each other and more major differences between the two show more intensely. Later on, Gogol develops a serious relationship with an all-American woman named Maxine who leads him ever further from his family. “He tells her he has a deadline at work, but it’s not true-- that’s the day that he and Maxine are leaving for New Hampshire, for two weeks” (144). Since Gogol is spending all this time with Maxine and her family, he barely has any time for his own family and he’d rather be with Maxine. Gogol starts lying to his parents and making up excuses to avoid them which causes him to drift from his family even more than he already has.

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