Guthman 1

Kayelynn Guthman
Ms. Albrecht
Advanced Composition
Friday, April 24, 2015
A Gap in Generation
Growing up in one country gives a person a limited perspective on traditions that are
second nature to citizens but wildly bizarre to foreigners. One would never second guess the
custom of giving a baby a name right at birth or of sending Christmas cards or eating with a fork
and spoon and knife. Unless one learned that in other countries, they dont do that. For Jhumpa
Lahiri, the single perspective of a native born citizen has never been a part of her life.
Born in England to Indian immigrants and growing up in Rhode Island from a young age,
one can only imagine the amount of traditions that she has encountered in her life (Gipe). One
small example is her name. In India, a child is given a pet name that only the family and close
friends can use and may not be given a proper name until years later. The proper name is used for
formal and official occasions, such as school. Lahiri was born Nilanjana Sudheshna Lahiri but
called Jhumpa as a pet name. With her move to America, however, teachers and friends didnt
understand the custom and soon everyone called her Jhumpa, instead of her proper name
(Jhumpa Lahiri). This is just one example of differing traditions that immigrants sometimes
completely give up in new countries where they are not understood.

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Lahiri attended Barnard College and received a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature
and later a Masters Degree in English, Creative writing, and Comparative Studies in Literature
and the Arts. At Boston University she achieved a Doctorate in Renaissance Studies (Gipe). Even
with the PhD, she stuck to Creative Writing and published her first work, a collection of nine
short stories called Interpreter of Maladies in 1999 (Jhumpa Lahiri). For this, she was
awarded, among other things, the 2000 Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Hemingway Award (Jhumpa
Lahiri). Her second work, The Namesake, was published in 2003 and was turned into a movie in
2007 (Jhumpa Lahiri).
The Namesake is the story of a young Indian couple, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, who
move to the United States in the early 1970s and try to keep their traditions while integrating into
the American culture. They associate with other Bengali immigrants and throw traditional
parties. But something changes when they have their first child.
Their son is given the pet name Gogol, after Nikolai Gogol. This name is recorded as his
official name at the hospital because they need a birth certificate to leave. However, they never
intend for Gogol to remain his name. On his first day of school, they try to explain the pet versus
proper name tradition, giving Gogol the proper name of Nikhil. But Gogol doesnt want to be
called Nikhil and so he stays Gogol. This is the first custom they give up in their new country
and they never give their second child, a daughter named Sonia, a pet name at all (Lahiri 34-60).
As Gogol grows up, they compromise even more: celebrating Christmas even though
they are technically Hindu, allowing their children to dress as the American children do, getting a
car, eating pizza and cheeseburgers. They still throw huge parties, much to the chagrin of Gogol

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and Sonia, with all of their Bengali friends and Ashima still wears saris and speaks Bengali
(Lahiri 63-66).
They also make frequent trips to Calcutta, where Ashoke and Ashima grew up, to visit the
many relatives and friends. Gogol sees them more as ordeals to survive then vacations to look
forward to. One particularly long visit is for eight months while his father is on sabbatical. Gogol
doesnt look forward to it at all, disappointed that he will miss two thirds of tenth grade and will
have to survive eight months without a room of his own, without his records and his stereo,
without friends (Lahiri 79). Though he has been to Calcutta many times, he finds the trip
exhausting and harried as they move from home to home of various relatives. Ashoke and
Ashima are right at home but Gogol surrender[s] to confinement in a city where he has no
sense of direction or yearning to explore (Lahiri 83-84). He stays in, drawing what he can see
from windows and occasionally doing homework. It is a relief when they return home and Gogol
can be a normal American kid again.
When Gogol returns to high school for his junior year, he is disappointed to find that they
are going to be reading some of Nikolai Gogols work, specifically The Overcoat, in English
class. He is horrified to find out about his namesakes life and death. He never reads the
assignment, admits that [h]e has never touched the Gogol book his father gave him on his
fourteenth birthday, and presses his parents for the reason why he was named after him in the
first place. The real reason for his name isnt revealed to him until years later (Lahiri 88-93).
In the meantime, he is ashamed of the name and attempts to be the normal American
teenager that his friends expect him to be. He sneaks off with friends to see The Rocky Horror
Picture Show, or into Boston to see bands in Kenmore Square and once to a college party.

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There, he meets a girl and introduces himself, for the first time, as Nikhil, the proper name that
he was supposed to have as a child. He is liberated by this (Lahiri 95-95). The summer after
graduating high school, he changes his name to Nikhil, a process that takes all of ten minutes but
years to implement and a lifetime to erase from his parents habits, which never really happens
(Lahiri 102).
He attends Yale University, deciding against his parents wish of engineering at MIT, and
decides to major in architecture and eventually graduates from the architecture program at
Columbia. While in college, he obediently but unwillingly...goes home every other weekend
(Lahiri 106), but thats where his obligation stops. On the train home one day, he meets a girl,
Ruth, and starts dating her without telling his parents. He doesnt think they would approve
because shes not Indian not even close and they have never met her. His parents, after all,
were married under an arranged marriage. They never dated and dont really understand the
process (Lahiri 109-119).
During his senior year, he learns the real reason for his name. His father finally tells him
of the train crash that almost took his life over thirty years before and the book that had saved
him (Lahiri 123). Gogol is stunned, not really knowing what to say and feeling guilty for
changing his name in the first place. He asks his father if he reminds him of that night, but he
assures him that he doesnt. Ashoke replies that he reminds him of everything that followed
(Lahiri 124).
After Columbia and his break up with Ruth, he moves to New York, as far away from his
family as he feels comfortable with, without feeling guilty. He starts working at an architecture
firm and meets a wealthy woman and falls in love, once again. His girlfriend, Maxine, only

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meets his parents once, on their way up to a vacation in Maine. Maxines life is so different than
Gogols that he falls in love with her life as well, moving in with her and her parents, acquiring
chores, and only talking to his family every once in a while when he feels like its been too long.
They dont understand his relationship with her, his need of a new life away from them. He cant
really explain his attraction to the life of borderline carelessness but he continues his routine of
almost complete separation from his family until tragedy strikes (Lahiri 125-158).
His father starts a class in Ohio, leaving his mother on her own for the first time in her
life. One day just before Christmas, Ashoke calls Ashima, telling her hes in the hospital but not
to worry because its just for a stomach ache. Later, after trying to contact him for over an hour,
she finds out that he died of a heart attack in the ER. Its only a matter of days before Gogol is
back with his mother and Sonia in Boston, mourning his death. This event brings Gogol back to
his family and farther and farther away from Maxines (Lahiri 125-187).
He eventually breaks off the relationship and goes on living alone but visiting his mother
very often. It is through his mother that he reconnects with Moushumi, a girl from his childhood
that was always at his parents parties among the Bengali friends. Shes the daughter of Indian
immigrants who lived in England for years before moving to the USA. They connect over old
memories and the ways that they have tried to escape from their parents lives. Eventually, they
are married and Gogol realizes that he has ended up where his parents wanted him all along:
happily married to a Bengali girl that they would approve of. He finds it ironic. Until he finds out
that, after nearly three years together, Moushumi has been having an affair with an old friend and
they get divorced (Lahiri 188-273).

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As the book comes to an end, Ashima is preparing to leave her house and move back to
Calcutta where she will live for a few months out of the year. The other months she will spend
with her children and various friends in New England. Gogol and Sonia help pack their
respective belongings and along the way, Gogol finds the copy of Nikolai Gogols short stories
that his father had given him years before, before he knew why his father was so obsessed with
the man in the first place. After years of refusing to read his namesakes writing, he sits down
and starts to read (Lahiri 274-291).
While the story centers on an immigrant family, it cannot be called only an immigrant
narrative (Friedman). It incorporates the next generation of the family in America, not just the
immigrants themselves. Lahiri does a beautiful job of integrating herself into this book, as well.
Not only does it take place where she grew up, there are certain aspects that she shares with the
characters.
With the parents she shares the unique experience of changing cultures. While Lahiri
never lived in India, one can be certain that she learned many traditions from her parents. She
knows what its like to move to America from somewhere else, to see the sights and eat the food
for the first time. The American experience, though she was young, was new to her as well.
With Moushumi, there was the connection to Europe. She didnt spend as much time in
England as Moushumi did but it was the same chronological line of events. For this, she was
tied, like Moushumi, to three cultures instead of two. Even more customs to integrate into her
life.

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With Gogol, the odd name change. Both had pet names turned proper and while Lahiri
probably wasnt ashamed of having her name, one can only imagine the number of times she had
to explain why the name she went by wasnt the name on her birth certificate. Unlike Gogol, she
never changed her name and stuck close to her Indian roots. But one can be sure that she is just
like every other person living in America.
Throughout the book, the theme of finding oneself is prevalent. Like Gogol, Lahiri had to
find a happy medium amongst the expectations of family and friends from around the world. In
the end, Gogol found that his family was always going to be a part of him. His name didnt really
matter. What mattered was that it tied him to his father. It didnt matter how far away his mother
was, she would always be a part of his life, no matter what. Its the same for everyone. As much
people resist and write their own stories, their past, their heritage, will always be a part of them.
Lahiri learned that and wrote a book about it. Thats what everyone needs to learn. Ones family
makes him who he is and either he can embrace it or he can fight it. And usually embracing it is
the most rewarding.

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Work Cited
Friedman, Natalie. From Hybrids To Tourists: Children of Immigrants In Jhumpa Lahiris The
Namesake. Critique 50.1 (2008): 111. Advanced Placement source. Web. 17 April 2015.
Gipe, Nicholas, Lindsay Greco and et al. Jhumpa Lahiri. Voices from the Gaps. 20 December
2005. University of Minnesota. 14 April 2015.
"Jhumpa Lahiri." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2015. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. New York: Mariner, 2003. Print.