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The Namesake, A Literary Analysis

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Throughout many of the different novels that we have read in class we are able to see how asian americans strive to find their own identities and how there was a challenge between the American culture and the achievement of social equality for own racial group. Asian American who becomes assimilated in American culture had to pay the price for such a desire. Figuring out one’s identity is big issue, for immigrants especially for 2nd generation of Asian Americans who feel neither native Asian nor American. Asian American tried to fit them into the majority ‘American culture’ instead of their own culture and conflict with their order generations. For the minorities, America is still a place which have to give up many of own uniqueness and struggle to fit in for their comfortable. Minority races and cultures tried to find a new place in America where they can fit …show more content…

In the book, “The Namesake,” Gogol, the protagonist is a son of first-generation immigrants to the U.S. from India who is tasked with living the double life, fitting in with the culture of his parents as swell as the culture of U.S. Although Gogol struggles to find an identity, his struggle is based on the fact that he cannot fully be Bengali or American. Therefore he has to find a bridge between the two identities, which is the same struggle for many second generations. "For being a foreigner Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy -- a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been an ordinary life, only to discover that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity of from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.”(49

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Imagine yourself caught between two vastly different cultures in America- one you only see at home with your family and the other you see at school and in most other aspects of your life. Would you be able to pick just one culture? You know that choosing one would turn your back against your family, but the other would make you stand out in a crowd. How would you handle this dilemma? Jhumpha Lahiri, author of The Namesake, describes the journey of a Bengali family- mainly focusing on Gogol- who recently moved to America.

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To be alone on an island, painting the sky the desired shade of blue, but to be secluded, fending away civilization as it it were a parasite, is not one’s ideal state of mind. Yet, by a particular female character named Moushumi In the book The Namesake, they are confused. Moushumi is the ex-wife of Gogol and identified in detail by Jhumpa Lahiri. Moushumi’s identity is composed of her experiences, her values, and her background.

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