Gogol's Life: A Brief Film Analysis

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Gogol was in a few different relationships over the course of Namesake. The three women he had a relationship with were Ruth, Maxine Ratliff, and Moushumi Mazoomdar. Each of these girls had both a positive and negative impact on Gogol’s life. We will take a look on how they impacted his life both in the book and the movie. First, we will see how they act in the book, then we will move on do how they are similar in the movie. One of the girls that shaped Gogol is Ruth. Gogol meet Ruth in class as a student at Yale. One day leaving Yale, Gogol sat next to Ruth on the train and began talking to her. After a short time dating each other, Ruth decided to move to Oxford for a semester and then decided to stay the summer. When Ruth returns and goes back to Gogol, things don’t turn out very well. When Ruth returns, they didn’t get along with each other and decide to break up. …show more content…

Ruth however is never mentioned in the film at all. The book and the movie both show that Gogol blames Maxine and their relationship for the cause of his guilt being away from his family after his father’s death. Then Gogol meets Moushumi. They did meet years after they had a small exchange, but not at his fourteenth birthday party like in the book. They do end up getting married. A year into their marriage she confesses that she did cheat on Gogol and this causes them to end the marriage. Just like how it was in the book, Gogol is very upset and losses all trust. Ruth, Maxine and Moushumi had a great impact on Gogol’s life, giving him not just happiness, but also giving him hardships in his life as well. Ruth showed him who to look for in terms of a girl. Maxine showed him that he was being disconnected from his family, and after his father’s death he tried to reconnect back to his family. Moushumi helped him reconnect back to his Indian roots, but she also cheated on him causing him