His family wants him to follow his father’s footsteps and become an engineer, but he wants to pursue architecture. His mother wants him to follow Bengali culture, such as marrying someone from the same background. Regardless of his parents’ desires, he focuses more on his friends and American culture than his own family’s values. When his father passes away, he begins to cherish his family values. Gogol is very caring and committed to his passions.
“Do I remind you of that night?” “Not at all,” his father says eventually, one hand going in his ribs, a habitual gesture that has baffled Gogol until now. “You remind me of everything that followed.” Chapter 5, page 124.
The story The House On Mango Street was published in 1983 by a female author going by the name of Sandra Cisneros. She was born on December 20, 1954, in Chicago, Illinois. Cisneros was influenced to write The House On Mango Street because of her childhood home that she used to live in. The main character, Esperanza, grew up very lonely with no friends. This relates to Cisneros because she also grew up very lonely and without friends.
Home is a sacred place where one feels comfortable in. As Sonsyrea Tate states, “You can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you,” it suggests that home may be conceived as of a dwelling, a place, or a state of comfort. There are many memories in a home and when one leaves home, there are many memories that are carried with him or her. In Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, a family moves to Congo, South America for the sake of the father’s occupation, a minister. To adapt to this new place with different rules, the females of the family have to sacrifice.
When most people think of the word “home,” they imagine a safe environment where they feel as though they belong as they truly are. This conceptualized environment includes friends, family, traditions, and memories. No matter where someone goes—as long as they are with what that they find peace and happiness in—they will be content. However, not everyone can find this sense of security and belonging so easily. Joy Jordan-Lake’s novel, Blue Hole Back Home, displays the rough transition of Farsanna Moulavi and her family from an unprivileged life in Sri Lanka to the unwelcoming, xenophobic realm of the Southern United States.
Life can be boring, especially when you might have lived in a certain place for so long. However, to have a place to call home is the most comfort feeling anyone can have, even if they have been moving their whole lives. But home, does not always mean a physical place, but the bond shared with people in that place. In Scott Russell Sanders essay, Homeplace, he expresses how people staying is good because one can truly respect or feel blessed of what they have received than to throw away the effort that once existed. Yet, Richard Ford’s
In the Novel “Homecoming” a family of children, the Tillermans, are having a rough time finding a place they can call home. There is many definitions for the word home, but to the Tillermans a home is place where they can not be separated. The children have been through and have thought about four homes, Cousin Eunice, foster care, Will and Claire, and their grandmother’s home. They chose to stay with their grandmother, but the children could have went to any of the other three homes. Each home offers something in both a positive and negative way, and the Tillermans prefer one home of the others.
Gogol becomes involved in the American way of life, although it is opposite to his family’s culture. Although it was hard at times to adjusts to both cultures, he was able to balance the two out and be content with life. For instance, Gogol’s family wants him to adapt to certain elements of their culture including marriage arrangements, Indian food, and the grandparent’s right to name newborns. However, some of their values interfere with American values. For example, in America, the parents of
Anna states, “Home is where the heart is. There’s no place like
Gogol, the son of Ashima and Ashoke, was born in America and spends the first half of his life trying to run away from his Bengali roots. Although Gogol does not feel as lost and detached as his parents in America, he has a difficult time trying to balance the Bengali culture he was born into as well as the American culture he sees and experiences all around him as he is growing up. Throughout the novel, The Namesake, Gogol struggles to develop his identity due to the clashing of Bengali and American culture in his life. Gogol’s first obstacle in his search for self-identity occurs only a couple days after his birth, when his parents must decide on a name in order to be released from the hospital. Ashima and Ashoke eventually decide on Gogol, after the writer who saved Ashoke’s life during a train crash.
Gogol’s acceptance into the family wasn’t that genuine but there doesn’t seem to be any underlying evidence of racism. When Gogol was first introduced to Maxine’s family they were, “at once satisfied and intrigued by his background, by his years at Yale and Columbia, his career as an architect, his Mediterranean looks.” This shows that Maxine’s family really just appreciated and liked his fancy background and how it fits in with their extravagant house and fancy things. When talking to them about India they ask him, “‘what’s Calcutta like? Is it beautiful?’”, which proves again that they only care about things like this.
She educates Gogol and Sonia both Bengali and American culture by giving in and cooking them American food once in a while. In the meantime, though she has lived in America for most of her life, has a social security number and driving license, and has raised two kids here, she never sees the U.S as India, her root. Long after her husband’s death, Ashima is experiencing a complicated moment, According to her, “True to the meaning of her name, she will be without borders, without a home of her own, a resident everywhere and nowhere.” (p276) She is going through a hard time thinking who she truly is: “For thirty years she missed her life in India.
We’re all separated, living different lives, but we’re good and stable. Others just know the outcome of how my family is right now while a few know the whole story. My home has so many memories I don’t want to remember, but it has shaped who I am today, especially being separated from my little brother and the events leading up to it. In Joan Didion, “On Going Home”, the author talks about how difficult it is going back home to her family in the Central Valley of California and how uneasy it gets going back.
However, as time passes, they begin to nurture a love for each other. This is only the beginning of a series of relationships in “The Namesake.” The primary one, centers on Gogol and his tight relationship between his Indian-cultured parents. At first, Gogol is completely in disgust at his parents and their background. This is evident during the beginning of their trip to India.
Not only does this make him drift from his family, but drift from his Indian Culture. “At times, as the laughter at Gerald and Lydia’s table swells, and another bottle of wine is opened, and Gogol raises his glass to be filled yet again, he is conscious of the fact that his immersion in Maxine’s family is a betrayal of his own” (141). Gogol has been following the “American” ways with Maxine’s family and he has become aware of the disconnection between him and his culture. It seems as if he is starting to feel quite guilty because of this and he feels as if he is being
