Gogol Assimilation

There are many connections between the oppression happening to Gogol because of his Bengali culture and people of different races in reality. This example of oppression is known as a culture clash, which is a “conflict between cultures or a disagreement arising between two parties of different beliefs, values and practices”(). To begin, Park Burgess quotes that, “Assimilation is a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons or groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons or groups, and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a common cultural life”. Similarly, this is clearly shown throughout Gogol’s life, because he comes from a Bengali culture and completely tries to assimilate

Both examples clearly show assimilation happening, the source explains it while the quote from the novel gives you an example of it happening among children of different cultures. Moving on, because of this acculturation happening among children of different cultures parents are coming down even harder on them to not lose their roots and adapt to the new way of life that they are living in. For instance, Jeffrey Bilik says that, “Fearful of losing their native culture, Bengali immigrants remain close to one another in South Indian enclaves, and socialize their children...as conservative and close as possible, refusing acculturation...the children, on the other hand, begin to embrace new cultural and societal norms as they enter more public spheres, such as that of public school”(Bilik). In comparison to that, in The Namesake, this is clearly shown when Gogol at a young age tries to distance himself from his Bengali culture when he felt like he was to forced into it. He himself states that, “He didn 't want to go home on the weekends, to go with them to pujos and Bengali parties, to remain unquestionably in their world”(Lahiri