The Namesake Study Guide

© 2022 eNotes.com, Inc. or its Licensors.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web distribution or information storage
retrieval systems without the written permission of the publisher.

Heidi.O

1
eNotes | TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE NAMESAKE STUDY GUIDE 1

SUMMARY 3
Summary: Introduction 3
Summary: Extended Summary 3

CHAPTER SUMMARIES 5
Chapter Summaries: Chapters 1-2 Summary and Analysis: 1968 5
Chapter Summaries: Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis: 1971 6
Chapter Summaries: Chapters 4-5 Summary and Analysis: 1982 9

THEMES 11
Themes 11

CHARACTERS 12
Characters: List of Characters 12
Characters: Character Analysis 13

ANALYSIS 14
Analysis: The Namesake 14
Analysis: The Namesake 15
Analysis: Setting 19
Bibliography 19

2
Summary

Summary: Introduction
The Ganguli family in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake has a problem. The mother and father are traditional
Bengalese from Calcutta, and they are not particularly interested in assimilating into the United States, their adopted
home. Gogol, their son, however, was born in the United States and is somewhat embarrassed by his parents
Bengalese practices. Gogol is also uncomfortable with his name. It is neither a Bengalese nor an American
name. No one he knows has a name like his. In school, kids make fun of it. But the conflict goes deeper than that.

Gogol's father tries to explain why he gave that name to his first-born child, but Gogol could not care less. Gogol, in
his attempts to get out from under the Bengali culture, even tries to completely disassociate himself from his family.
But when his father dies, Gogol is surprised by how much he misses him. Slowly he turns back to his mother and
sister. His new closeness makes Gogol's American girlfriend question why he is acting so differently. The strain
breaks down their relationship.

Later, when Gogol's mother suggests that Gogol call the Bengalese daughter of her friend, Gogol resists, for a little
while. Then he gives in, somewhat curious about dating a Bengalese woman.

As Gogol slowly realizes the importance of his family and his culture, he falls in love with Moushumi, the Bengalese
woman. The story appears to have finally come to a happy conclusion. Gogol and Moushumi are married. But this is
not a romantic happily-ever-after tale. Moushumi, who was a quiet and shy young teen, has tasted freedom in her
twenties, a freedom from her parents and their strict Bengali ways. Now Moushumi feels confined in her marriage, no
matter how well Gogol treats her. She turns away from him in the only way she knows how: she has an affair.

The Namesake takes readers behind the closed doors of people who have immigrated to the United States to find a
better life and the challenges they unexpectedly discover in the process.

Summary: Extended Summary

As The Namesake opens, Ashima Ganguli is a young bride who is about to deliver her first child in a hospital in
Massachusetts. Her husband, Ashoke, is an engineering student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Ashoke had traveled back to Calcutta to find a wife. Ashima, who comes from a traditional Bengali/Indian family, had
little choice in the matter. As she prepares to give birth, she realizes how isolated she has become. If she were still
in Calcutta, she would have her baby at home, surrounded by all the women in her family who would administer all
the proper Bengali ceremonies and would tell her what to expect. In the United States, Ashima struggles through
language and cultural barriers as well as her own fears as she delivers her first child.

The baby boy is healthy and the new parents are prepared to take their son home. But Ashima and Ashoke are
stunned to learn that they cannot leave the hospital before they give their son a legal name. The traditional naming

3
process in their families is to have an elder give the new baby a name. They have chosen Ashima's grandmother for
this honor. The grandmother writes down the name on a piece of paper and mails it to them. But the letter never
arrives and soon after, the grandmother dies. In the meantime, Ashoke suggests the name of Gogol. He chooses
this name for two reasons. First, it is the name of his favorite author, the famous Russian author. The second reason
is that Ashoke, before he was married, had been in a very serious accident. The train he was riding in had derailed.
Many people died. Ashoke had broken his back and could not move. He had been reading Gogol just before the
accident. He had a page of that book clutched in his hand. The paper caught the attention of the medics who had
come to rescue him. If it were not for the page, acting as a flag in the darkness, Ashoke could have died.

Gogol grows up hating his name. His father tries once to explain the significance of it, but he senses that Gogol is
not old enough to understand. His parents decide to give him a more public name, which is part of the Bengali
tradition—having a private name that only family and friends use and a public name for everything else. They chose
Nikhil. When Gogol goes off to college, he uses his public name.

This change in name and Gogol's going to Yale, rather than following his father’s footsteps to MIT, sets up the
barriers between Gogol and his family. The distance, both geographically and emotionally, between Gogol and his
parents continues to increase. He wants to be American not Bengalese. He goes home less frequently, dates
American girls, and becomes angry when anyone calls him Gogol. He lives in a very small apartment in New York
City, where he has landed a job in an established architectural office. He is rather stiff personality-wise, perpetually
angry or else always on the lookout for someone to make a stereotypical comment about his background.

At a party, Gogol meets a very attractive and rather socially aggressive woman named Maxine. Gogol becomes
completely wrapped up in her and her family. Maxine's parents are financially well off and live in a four-story house
in New York City. Maxine has one floor to herself and invites Gogol to move in. Gogol becomes a member of the
family, helping with the cooking and shopping. Maxine's parents appear to have accepted him as a son. When
Maxine's parents leave the city for the summer, they invite Maxine and Gogol to join them for a couple of weeks.
They are staying in the mountains in New Hampshire, where Maxine's grandparents live. For a while, Gogol is
entrenched in this very American family.

Gogol introduces Maxine to his parents. Ashima dismisses Maxine as something that Gogol will eventually get over.
Shortly after this meeting, Gogol's father dies of a heart attack while he is working on a temporary project in Ohio.
Gogol travels to Ohio to gather his father's belonging and his father's ashes. Something inside of Gogol changes. He
slowly withdraws from Maxine as he tries to sort out his emotions. Maxine tries to pressure him to open up to her.
Gogol breaks off the relationship and begins to spend more time with his mother and sister, Sonia.

Ashima, after some time has gone by, suggests that Gogol contact the daughter of one of her friends. Gogol knows
of the woman from his own childhood. Her name is Moushumi, and she has had the unfortunate experience of
having planned a wedding only to have her intended groom change his mind at the last minute. Gogol is reluctant to
meet with Moushumi for two reasons. She is Bengalese, and she is recovering from having been shamed. But he
meets her anyway, to please his mother.

Moushumi and Gogol are attracted to one another and eventually are married. However, by the end of their first year
of marriage, Moushumi becomes restless. She feels tied down by marriage and begins to regret what she has done.
Gogol suspects something is wrong and often feels like a poor substitute for Moushumi's ex-fiance, Graham, who
abandoned Moushumi. One day, Moushumi comes across the name of a man she knew when she was a senior in
high school. She contacts him, and they begin an affair. Gogol finds out. Moushumi and Gogol divorce.
4
The story ends with Ashima selling the family home so she can live in India with her siblings for half of the year.
Sonia is preparing to marry to an American man named Ben. Gogol is once again alone. But he feels comforted by
one thing: before his father died, he finally told his son why he had chosen that name for him. By the end of the
novel, Gogol has come to accept his name and picks up a collection of the Russian author's stories that his father
had given him as a birthday present many years ago.

Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summaries: Chapters 1-2 Summary

and Analysis: 1968
Chapter 1 Summary

As Ashima Ganguli tries to create a spicy Indian snack with American ingredients, she feels a stirring in her lower
abdomen. She is about to have her first baby. She feels the movement of the fetus and calls her husband, Ashoke
Ganguli, for help; they need to go to the hospital right away. Her husband is a senior doctoral student in engineering
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Ashima finds herself in the hospital’s clinical environment, thinking of her home and family in Calcutta. She feels the
difference between giving birth here in Boston and how it would have been in Calcutta; no one from her parents’
family is present. In Bengali Indian tradition, women go to their parents’ home for childbirth. Surrounded by female
family elders, the would-be mother is, herself, treated like a child. As she lies on her hospital bed in a semi-private
room, having the baby with only her husband present, she thinks that this is not the way it is supposed to be.

Her husband is also alone and tense about his wife’s imminent childbirth. As he awaits the birth of his firstborn child,
Ashoke’s mind goes back to his days in India. He remembers his near-fatal train accident when he was en route to
visit his grandfather, a retired professor of Russian literature who had instilled into him a love for writers like Tolstoy,
Turgenev, and Gogol. Ashoke was reading a short story by Gogol—“The Overcoat”—when the devastating accident
occurred. He had just listened, somewhat dismissively, to a fellow passenger’s advice about getting out of India to
see the world while he was still young, when his train derailed, killing hundreds of passengers (including the man he
had just spoken with). His life was miraculously saved when a rescuer spotted a torn page from the book next to
Ashoke’s mangled body. He could not walk for a year. During his recovery, Ashoke Ganguli decided to leave home
to take up doctoral studies in MIT as soon as he was well.

Ashima’s mind wanders, too. She remembers the first time she met Ashoke, when he came to her parents’ home to
formally “see” his prospective bride. Three weeks later she became his wife. She was dressed in a dazzling red sari
and adorned with sandalwood dots on her forehead, flowers, and jewelry. She was carried on a flat wooden seat by
her brothers and cousins. She hid her face with a large green leaf and ceremoniously withdrew it when brought face-
to-face with Ashoke under a canopy erected for their wedding, and they “viewed” each other for the first time. Amid
such pomp and show, Ashima and Ashoke were married in Calcutta.
5
On this day, one of the most important days of their young married life, both remember the past that got them
here. Ashoke is thankful for a second chance, thankful that he is able to give life to another human being.

Chapter 2 Summary

The baby boy is born. The grandmother who was to name the newborn posted a letter with his name in it, but the
letter never arrived. Because the hospital administrators will not allow the baby to leave without a name, Ashoke
decides to name his son Gogol after his favorite author.

The Ganguli family lives in an apartment on the first floor of a house owned by a Harvard professor. The Gangulis
spend time with other Bengali graduate students living in Boston. Every weekend, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli
invite or visit Bengali friends for dinner.

All their friends are Bengalis; upon getting together, they eat Bengali food, talk incessantly in Bengali about the lives
they left behind in Calcutta, and sing Bengali songs. During these visits, Boston is almost forgotten. At times Ashima
wishes to return to Calcutta to bring up their son, but she knows that is not possible.

The Gangulis celebrate their son’s Rice Ceremony when he is six months old. At this age the baby is supposed to be
ceremonially named and eat rice for the first time. The ceremony is elaborate: part social, part religious. After
consuming his first meal of solid food, the baby is made to choose between objects to give an indication of what
profession he will prefer when an adult: in front of him is placed a dollar (representing business), a pen (representing
scholarship), and earth (representing land or real estate). Gogol does not choose; he begins to cry.

The Gangulis prepare to go back to India for a few weeks; it will be their first visit since their arrival in the United
States. Ashima busies herself buying gifts for her parents and other members of her family. During one of these
shopping sprees, during which she buys choice paint brushes for her amateur artist father, she carelessly leaves the
packages in a shopping bag in the underground metro and is inconsolable with regret. To her very pleasant surprise,
upon inquiring at the lost and found, Ashoke is told that the packages have been found intact. “Only in this country”
is the incredulous response from Ashima’s Indian friends when she tells them the story.

A few days later, news comes from India that Ashima’s father has suddenly died of a heart attack. Devastated by the
news, she deposits a bag with her father’s gifts under the seat of another metro and returns home empty handed.
Their first trip back home, the one for which they were planning with such enthusiasm, turns into a sad event; they
depart in tears.

Chapter Summaries: Chapter 3 Summary

and Analysis: 1971
The Gangulis have moved to the suburbs of Boston. Ashoke has earned his doctorate in engineering and was
offered a job as an assistant professor of engineering in a college outside of Boston. He is now Professor Ganguli
and is quietly proud of himself. He notes with special satisfaction that all his students are Americans; he is respected

6
as an authority even among White Americans. Quietly, he is impressed with his achievements. He almost died in
Calcutta, he often reminds himself. He got a second lease on life, left India to study in the United States, and here he
is on the threshold of his professional career. He has reasons to be pleased.

However, moving every few years is becoming too much for Ashima. She is a city girl, having been born and brought
up in Calcutta and then “having lived in Boston” (Cambridge, actually). She finds life in this university town a bit too
quiet and lonely, especially when Ashoke is at the university. Ashima cooks and cleans house and goes shopping
with little Gogol. When he is four, he starts going to a preschool for children of the faculty. Ashima goes to her son’s
school and watches him learn the letters of the alphabet and count.

When Gogol is five, Ashima gives birth to a baby girl whom they name Sonali, the golden one. Her name eventually
will be muted to Sonia, a name easily recognizable in three continents: Europe, North America, and Asia. Gogol
begins going to school. His father wants to name him Nikhil, which means “the all encompassing,” but Gogol will
have none of it. He does not know or respond to the name. So when his father takes him to school the first day the
school principal sides with Gogol and he gets to keep his name.

Gogol is fourteen now. He is almost as tall as his father; he is gaunt and has a clear hint of a moustache. His eyes
are dark and piercing. Like his mother, he has long, tapering fingers; his face is always slightly pensive. Gogol’s
fourteenth birthday party is like any other birthday party of his—an all-Bengali affair attended by Ashoke and
Ashima’s friends who are Bengalis. The ladies come in dazzling saris and jewelry while the men dressed a lot more
casually in T-shirts and pants. The men sit on the carpeted floor and play cards as they stormily discuss
Reaganomics. The women congregate in another room to discuss cooking, clothing, and their children. Only Gogol
is left with nothing to do. He realizes that he is too old for the other children who have come to the party with their
parents and too young to discuss politics and economics with his father’s friends. For Ashima these birthdays mean
cooking sprees: endless samosas and curries; chops made of ground meat and sweets made with milk and ricotta
cheese. She started cooking for the party three days in advance.

These days Gogol spends most of his time sulking, pensive because of the confusion he feels over his name. He
wonders why his father named him so weirdly after a Russian author. His friends laugh at his name, which is neither
Indian nor American. Other Indians in his school have names that can easily be muted to American names like Jay
for Jaydev. Even his own formal name, Nikhil, could have been shortened to Nick had he not objected to it as a five
year old. Everywhere he goes, people immediately question his name: “What? What does it mean, Gogol, where
does it come from?” He has to explain too much. Other boys his age have been on occasional dates with girls but
Gogol has not bothered to ask a girl out. He cannot imagine calling a girl and announcing that his name is Gogol. So
he sulks, mostly by himself, unable to find any sympathy in his parents or in school. For a young adolescent boy
growing up Indian American, he is going through an acute identity crisis, but hardly anybody seems aware of it.

The crisis with his name becomes intolerable when, shortly after his fourteenth birthday, his father enters his room
while he is busy gyrating to the Beatles’ White Album. Gogol expected Sonia and is shocked to see his father, who
has hardly ever come to his room. Startled, he asks him to come in. Ashoke enters with a wrapped present in his
hand. He gives him the present, which he says he ordered for him. It is a book, the short stories of Nicolay Gogol. He
is unimpressed. His father tells him there is a special reason why he has given him the short stories of Gogol.
“Because he’s your favorite author?” suggests Gogol. But his father says there is another reason. As Gogol waits,
expecting an answer, Ashoke begins to have second thoughts about whether he should tell his son about the train
accident on a day when he assumes his son is happy. So Ashoke retracts his offer to tell him. He says, “No other
reason,” and leaves the room.
7
When Gogol is fifteen, he and Sonia are informed by their parents that Ashoke has been given a sabbatical leave
from his college and they are to go to Calcutta for eight months. This is not good news for Gogol and Sonia. They
have been to India several times, but the previous visits were short and lasted two to three weeks at most. Gogol is
in tenth grade now and such a long absence from school can set him back in his studies. His teachers object but his
parents prevail. He is given detailed homework from school. Then, much against their will, Gogol and Sonia leave for
Calcutta with their parents. At the airport Ashoke presents two Indian passports (belonging to him and his wife) and
two American passports (his childrens’). On the plane the four of them are unable to get their seats together, so
Gogol gets to sit separate from his parents. Surreptitiously, he orders an alcoholic drink—a Bloody Mary—another
first in his life.

The eight months in Calcutta pass slowly for the children but their parents seem to be in their elements. For Ashoke
and Ashima, the transformation is almost immediate as they come face to face with their relatives. Their smiles are
broader, their voices louder, and their confidence is back. Surrounded by the hustle and bustle of what seems to be
thousands of relatives, Ashoke and Ashima seem completely at ease while their children barely manage. What is to
their parents a natural show of affection from relatives—and therefore immensely appreciated—frequently seems
like imposition to the two siblings, but the imposition must be politely tolerated for the sake of their parents. To their
relatives, Gogol and Sonia are curios to be asked endless, and often seemingly mindless, questions (“Are all
American buildings sky scrapers?”), all of which they answer patiently.

The high point of their India visit is their trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Gogol has always felt interested in art and
has a special talent for painting. He is mesmerized by this monumental symbol of love that the Mughal Emperor,
Shah Jehan, built for his wife, Mumtaz. (Her name is shortened to Taz or Taj in the name of the building, mahal in
this context meaning “edifice” or “mausoleum.”) Gogol is fairly overwhelmed by the awesome structure, built with the
best Italian marble in majestic symmetry. He decides that he will be an architect when he grows up.

The Ganguli family finally returns to their home in Massachusetts and feels relieved to back after so long. They
appreciate the small, everyday things of American life they had taken so much for granted: the quiet suburb, grocery
shopping in supermarkets, hamburgers and pizza. Gogol and Sonia are able to run around the house again and
misbehave with each other without having to be under the gaze of myriads of relatives.

As Gogol progresses through high school approaching college age, his parents are pleased with his aptitude in
drawing and mathematics, skills necessary for a career in engineering like his father’s. But the problem Gogol has
with his name keeps haunting him. He is now in the eleventh grade. To be accepted by his friends, he drinks an
occasional beer and sometimes even smokes pot. But he still cannot get himself to look for dates and misses his
junior prom because he dreads having to explain his name and wince under their curiosity. This does not matter to
Ashoke and Ashima. They never dated, so the possibility of their son’s dating, especially at age seventeen, does not
enter their minds.

The day before Gogol sits for the SAT (a public exam American, college-bound kids take to get into college), he
goes to a local college party with his high school friends. They lie about their ages and pretend to be at the
postsecondary level. Gogol gets to know a girl at the party who has bright red lipstick. She asks him his name, a
situation he hoped would not arise. Finally he says he is Nikhil and the girl says it is a lovely name. Gogol feels
relived. High on a couple of beers, he kisses her—his first kiss. On the way back with his friends, he brags about the
kiss. They are impressed but Gogol cannot believe it happened. Gogol did not do it, he keeps telling himself: it was
Nikhil.

8
Chapter Summaries: Chapters 4-5
Summary and Analysis: 1982
Gogol decides to change his name to Nikhil, the name his father chose for him but he rejected with all the wisdom of
a five year old, insecure in his first day at school. He is eighteen now and has been admitted to prestigious Yale
University; he feels convinced that “Gogol” simply will not be a serious enough name when he graduates from
college or applies for a job. He has found out that Nikhil is more acceptable to girls. Besides, he reasons, this is
America. It is an American’s right to change his or her name—all one needs is to legally petition the local
government. Many others have changed their names, among them Mark Twain and former U.S. President Gerald
Ford.

When he informs his parents about his wish, at first his parents object mildly. Gogol insists that people do not take
him seriously. When his father asks who does not take him seriously, Gogol cannot actually answer; he realizes,
though not fully, that no one has actually rejected him or not taken him seriously because of his name. But he still
objects to the name. To his surprise, his father accepts his decision to change his name.

Gogol changes his name to Nikhil by going alone to Boston, appearing in court, filling out the necessary forms, and
answering the necessary questions. As he exits the court, he is filled with a vaguely thrilling but also confusing
feeling: his name for so long is no longer his name! He feels like telling everyone in Boston that he is Nikhil Ganguli,
not Gogol: “Hi, I am Nikhil!” he actually says aloud to no one in particular. He is unaccustomed to the new name and
feels weird. He also feels a bit sad, to give up this name he has hated for so long; after all, it is the only name he has
ever responded had.

Armed with a new name, he makes the transition from high school to Yale University. Once again, he has to go
through the routine of changing his name in all official Yale documents because he applied to the university eight
months before as Gogol Ganguli. He has to tell his roommates that his name is actually Nikhil, not Gogol. But
everyone at Yale accepts his new name without fuss. Even when his parents visit him they seem to adapt to his new
name quite naturally, something about which Gogol is slightly taken aback.

The transitions are smooth and natural, both from school to college and from the old name to the new. Gogol studies
assiduously, falls in love with a girl called Ruth, and experiences sex (first anonymously with a stranger at an all-
night party on campus and then with Ruth, with all the attendant love and romance). However, he does not tell his
parents anything about Ruth; he does not even relish returning to the “mandatory” visits home every other weekend,
preferring the company of his girlfriend and the ambiance of Yale to the same old ethnic Bengali atmosphere of his
parents’ home on Pemberton Street. One time, on one of these visits to his family, Gogol carelessly refers to Yale as
“home,” and Ashima is beside herself in anger.

In about a year his parents become vaguely aware of Ruth, but do not seem to take the news of his having a
girlfriend very seriously. Meanwhile, Ruth goes to England on a study abroad term without Gogol. He misses her all
autumn. Nothing remarkable happens except that, out of curiosity, he attends a South Asian students’ conference on
social issues involving Indians in the United States. He has experienced numerous such issues, and he has gone to
their seminars in the past and learned from them nothing new except some terminologies describing Indian
Americans (such as ABCDE, American Born Confused Deshi—the last term being an Indian colloquial reference to
9
Indians in America.) The conference, though, causes some self-reflection in Gogol. He wonders who he is really. He
is Bengali, Indian, and can speak his mother tongue but cannot read it. Back in India, his American accented English
is a constant source of curiosity and laughter. But his two names—a “pet-name” and “a good name”—are the most
confusing of all.

Upon Ruth’s return to Yale, they find that they have drifted apart. Gogol finds his girlfriend’s “Englishisms” fake; Ruth
does not seem as enthusiastic as she was before about Gogol. They part company.

On one of his trips back home, he finds out—finally—why his father named him Gogol. Ashima and Sonia have gone
to India, leaving the father and son to spend Thanksgiving together. On the journey home, Gogol’s train is delayed
because a man jumped onto the rail to commit suicide. Gogol is mildly irritated by the cause of the delay. Upon
reaching his hometown, Gogol realizes that his father had been waiting for him, worried about delay. He, too, had
heard about the suicide: a man dying on a railroad track, not unlike what could have happened to him many years
ago. Sitting in the car, he tells Gogol the whole story and ends with why he named him Gogol.

Gogol is stunned. He feels sad, even resentful; the silence, he thinks, was tantamount to a lie. He feels offended that
he was kept clueless about such a significant event in his father’s life, which led to his own naming. With his face
streaming tears, Gogol asks his father if he named him Gogol because he reminds him of that near-fatal accident.
“Not at all,” replies his father with customary calmness: “You remind me of everything that followed.”

In 1995, nine years after Gogol learned about how he was named, Gogol lives in New York. He has graduated not
only from Yale but also as an architect from Columbia University’s School of Architecture and Planning. He gets a
job as an architect with a firm in midtown Manhattan. Some decisions he made disappointed his parents, such as
choosing not to study at the architectural school in MIT, his father’s alma mater. Gogol purposely wanted to eschew
his family’s home town, opting instead for cosmopolitan New York City, living alone in a studio apartment, earning
considerably less money than his parents had hoped for after financing their only son through Yale.

It is as a young, urban professional in the City that Gogol meets Maxine at a party in Tribeca. He begins his second
serious relationship. Maxine at once attracted Gogol’s attention with her easy aristocracy and purposeful opinions,
but he was somewhat taken aback—and flattered—that she located his phone number. She woke him up on the
following morning, when Gogol was intending to spend the weekend lazily. They met and kept on meeting at
restaurants and upscale coffee shops, and eventually he was invited to her home in Chelsea. Gogol was struck once
again by the fact that Maxine lived at home with her parents, something he had assiduously avoided.

Maxine and her parents were altogether people of a different ilk from what Gogol, with his ethnic Indian background,
was used to. Through Maxine’s family, Gogol discovers a whole different lifestyle: a thoroughly cosmopolitan life of
artistic temperaments and intellectuality and conversations far beyond anything Gogol is used to not only at his
parents’ home on Pemberton Street but even in his own relatively new life in New York. Maxine’s parents do not
seem to do small talk—they discuss art, culture, politics, and literature. They do not eat small food but always fancy
European bread and gourmet preparations. And, always, they do these things with the least amount of fuss, as if
they were simply born into it and aristocracy and luxury are their inalienable rights.

In front of Gogol, Maxine’s parents are physically affectionate: holding hands and sitting intimately while watching
television. Gogol, who has never seen his parents act physical in the remotest way, finds this puzzling—and
impressive. Most unusual is their nonchalance about the fact that Gogol and Maxine share Maxine’s bed. In Gogol’s

10
family, sex is something not spoken about or even acknowledged; romance and carnal affection are simply absent.
For Gogol, it takes some getting used to.

Maxine’s family throws elaborately sophisticated parties. Gogol soon realizes that, while Maxine and her parents
seem to take him completely naturally, their friends seem to regard him as some sort of a curio. They have endless
discussions on India’s poverty and propensity to disease. Gogol notices that even Maxine’s parents, in the midst of
these subcontinental discussions, seem to become less certain about Gogol’s background.

Meanwhile, Ashoke is getting ready to go to Cleveland, Ohio, for a semester as a visiting professor. Ashima wants
Gogol to visit them before his father leaves, but he had already planned a trip to his girlfriend’s summer resort in New
Hampshire and so said no. His mother is not happy, so Gogol compromises: he visits his parents with Maxine on
their way to New Hampshire but only for an afternoon. This is how Gogol’s parents meet Maxine. They have lunch
and say goodbye. Maxine’s parents celebrate Gogol’s birthday in their ultramodern summer house. Gogol is happy.

Themes

Themes
Various aspects and challenges of immigration and assimilation are explored in The Namesake. Lahiri offers insights
into the everyday life of one family, the Gangulis, who come to the United States but live separate from the American
culture. Ashima always dresses in traditional clothes. Once her children are in school, she observes American
celebrations, such as Christmas, but only reluctantly so. Rather, she puts most of her effort into creating a
Bengalese circle of friends and brings them together to share traditional Bengali feasts. Ashima and Ashoke never
entertain non-Bengalese friends.

Though the parents wish that their children would retain their Bengali heritage by keeping alive their language and
marrying other Bengalis, Gogol and Sonia are reluctant to do so. They are American, they insist. While living at
home, the children are obedient but only marginally follow in their parents' footsteps.

Gogol's rejection of his name, even though the name is Russian, is symbolic of his abandonment of his parents'
Indian culture. As much as his parents fight against assimilation, Gogol fights for it. He does not want to follow his
father in any way, down to the point of not wanting to go to the same American university that his father attended. He
does not want to become a mathematician or engineer as his father and many other Bengalese before him have
done.

Ashima and Ashoke take their children back to India several times during their childhood to familiarize them with
their Indian roots. The children go, but it only reinforces Gogol's and Sonia's impressions that they are American, not
Indian. They do not fit in. They cannot live under the confines of the traditional Bengalese family. They do not relate
to their aunts and uncles and cousins. Whereas, Ashima and Ashoke still think that their home is in India, all Sonia
and Gogol want to do is to go home.

This conflict pushes Gogol further away from his parents. He gets to a point where he does not even want to return
11
to Massachusetts to visit with them any more. He is reluctant to bring his girlfriends home, because his is slightly
ashamed of his parents and knows they will not approve of his non-Bengalese women. Gogol feels especially guilty
after his not wanting to go home to send his father off on a trip to Ohio. Ashoke had accepted a temporary
assignment that would take him away from his family for eight months. Ashoke dies while still in Ohio.

Even though Gogol has fought his Bengalese/Indian roots, there remains something in Gogol that appreciates his
culture. Once he gets over his rebellious stage, he finds comfort in his parents. Unfortunately, it seems to take the
death of his father for Gogol to reopen his heart to his family. He is able to see that although his mother is different
from him in her beliefs, she is still his mother. Ashima's need to retain her Bengalese roots is not a reflection on him.
He does not have to feel embarrassed about her or shameful of his own leaning toward and appreciation of his
American culture.

Love is another theme in this novel. Although Ashima and Ashoke's marriage is arranged, they learn in their own
subtle ways to feel love for one another. Gogol, at one point, compares the public showing of affection that Maxine's
parents exhibit to the lack of such public signs of emotion of his own parents. At first, he takes this to mean that his
parents do not have the same kind of love as Maxine's parents. He feels more comfortable around Maxine's parents
than he does his own parents. Later, after his father's death, Gogol sees things differently. His parents love could run
as deep as that of any other couple. It is just that their culture does not approve of public display. Love is considered
a private expression.

Gogol and Moushumi both resist the idea of arranged marriages, and yet both of them struggle with relationships
that go bad. Gogol and Moushumi have freedom of choice. Their choices, however, do not work out. It is unclear if
Lahiri is making a statement about the two options—arranged versus freedom of choice. Rather, she might be
making a statement on American culture in the 1980s and 1990s and the all too easily obtained divorce. Or she
might be asking readers to define love by offering several examples of what love can be and how to make it work.

Characters

Characters: List of Characters

Ashima Bhaduri Ganguli—Gogol's mother.

Ashoke Ganguli—Gogol's father.

Gogol (Nikhil) Ganguli—protagonist.

Sonia Gangoli—Gogol's younger sister.

Ben—Sonia's fiancé.

Patty—nurse who helps Ashima with first birth.

12
Gosh—man who dies in the train.

Maya Nandi and Dilip Nandi—among the first Bengali friends that Ashima and
Ashoke make in the United States.

Alan Montgomery and Judy Montgomery—Ashoke and Ashima live in the basement of the
Montgomery's house and represent typical 1960s hippies.

Mrs. Lapidus—principal at Gogol's school who insists on calling him Gogol.

Maxine Ratliff—Gogol has a long-term relationship with Maxine before marrying Moushumi.

Lydia Ratliff and Gerald Ratliff—Maxine's parents.

Donald and Astrid—friends of Moushumi.

Moushumi Mazoomdar—Bengalese woman who marries Gogol.

Rina Mazoomdar—Moushumi's mother.

Shubir Mazoomdar—Moushumi's father.

Graham—Moushumi's fiancé who left her right before their wedding.

Dimitri Desjardins—man with whom Moushumi has an affair after she is

married to Gogol.

Hank and Edith—Maxine's grandparents who live on a New Hampshire lake.

Bridget—married woman with whom Gogol has a brief affair before he marries Moushumi.

Characters: Character Analysis

Gogol, the protagonist of The Namesake, is a rather stiff character. The only time he appears pliable is when he is
in a relationship with a woman, and he leans her way. Most of the time, he is not a very likeable character. He shuns
his family mostly because of their cultural ties to India. Gogol wants to fit in with the culture around him and fears that
if he embraces Indian culture, Americans will reject him. In his mind, in order to be considered fully American, he has
to cut his ties with his family.

However, when it comes to his relationships with women, he loses his stiffness and falls all over them, coming when
they call him, doing what they want to do. For example, when Maxine goes after Gogol, she takes over his life. He
becomes almost as much a son to Maxine's parents as he becomes Maxine's lover. She asks him to move into her

13
parents' house, and he does so immediately. He drops many of his own daily rituals and practices and adapts to
Maxine's way of life.

Gogol has a similar relationship with Moushumi. He is passive with her, questioning himself about how he feels but
never openly discussing his emotions with her. Instead, he focuses on how Moushumi feels. Does she really love
him? Is he making her happy? Although he does not like it, Moushumi insists that he hang out with Moushumi's
friends, who constantly compare him to Moushimi's former fiancé, Graham. Gogol often feels out of place around
Moushumi, but he does not do anything about it. He just tries to do more to please her.

Gogol does demonstrate some strengths, however. When his father dies, a moment when Gogol could have been at
his weakest, he actually comes across very strong. He barely winces when he has to identify his father's body. Then
he gets rid of most of his father's things. This awakens his feelings for his father. Gogol also finally stands up to
Maxine. She wants him back but he needs time to think about the loss he has suffered. He is strong enough to
finally stay in his own world. The consequence is that Maxine moves away and shortly afterward is engaged to
someone else. It seems that all Maxine really wanted was an eligible husband. There is no reaction from Gogol
about Maxine. He is deeply into himself and his family.

But Gogol falls back into his old habits. After mourning his father, Gogol wants a wife. Moushumi perfectly fits the
description. Gogol and Moushumi might even have made their relationship work had Moushumi not recently
experienced a failed relationship with Graham. Graham had wounded her. She needed someone on her arm to
prove that she was worthy of love. That is when Gogol moved into her life—perfect timing, at least temporarily.
However, one year after they were married, Moushumi realizes that she really did not want to be tied down. She
wanted to be claimed, temporarily. She wanted someone to sleep with, to cuddle with. She needed Gogol to make
her feel whole again. Once he has healed her, she grows tired of him. She feels their relationship was too
conventional, too tame.

Analysis

Analysis: The Namesake

The Namesake portrays both the immigrant experience in America, and the complexity of family loyalties that
underlies all human experience. Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, after an arranged marriage in India, emigrate to
America where Ashoke achieves his dream of an engineering degree and a tenured position in a New England
college. Their son Gogol, named for the Russian writer, rejects both his unique name and his Bengali heritage.

In a scene central to the novel’s theme, Ashoke gives his son a volume of Nikolai Gogol’s short stories for his
fourteenth birthday, hoping to explain the book’s significance in his own life. Gogol, a thoroughly Americanized
teenager, is indifferent, preoccupied with his favorite Beatles recording. Such quietly revealing moments give the
narrative its emotional power. The loneliness of lives lived in exile is most poignantly revealed in the late night family
telephone calls from India, always an announcement of illness or death.

Gogol earns his degree in architecture, but happiness in love eludes him. An intense love affair with Maxine draws
14
him into a wealthy American family, revealing the extreme contrasts between American and Indian family values.
Gogol’s marriage to Moushumi, who shares his Indian heritage, ends in divorce.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s conclusion achieves a fine balance. Ashima, now a widow, sells the family home and will divide her
time between America and Calcutta. Gogol, at thirty-two, discovers in his father’s gift of Gogol’s short stories a
temporary reconciliation with his name and the heritage he has rejected.

Critics praise Lahiri’s luminous, graceful style and her keenly observed details of daily life, particularly the mythic
significance of food and ethnic customs. The Namesake, her first novel, fulfills the promise of her collection of short
stories, The Interpreter of Maladies (1999), that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000.

Review Sources

Booklist 99, nos. 19/20 (June 1, 2003): 1710.

Kirkus Reviews 71, no. 11 (June 1, 2003): 773.

Library Journal 128, no. 12 (July 15, 2003): 123.

The Nation 277, no. 13 (October 27, 2003): 36-38.

New Leader 86, no. 5 (September/October, 2003): 31-32.

The New York Times Book Review, September 28, 2003, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly 250, no. 27 (July 7, 2003): 48-49.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, p. M1.

Time 162, no. 12 (September 22, 2003): 76.

The Washington Post, September 14, 2003, p. BW10.

Analysis: The Namesake

Gogol Ganguli, the protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri’s first novel, is on a quest: He is compelled to reinvent himself, to
achieve a sense of dignity that will overcome the embarrassment of his name. Born in the United States, he is the
son of Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli, who were married in India in the traditional way, by parental arrangement. They
strive to preserve their Bengali culture while freeing their children to become successful Americans. Unlike
immigrants of earlier generations who turned their backs on the old country, knowing they could never return, the
Ganguli family travels frequently and with fluid ease between the United States and India, fully at home in neither
place.

15
Gogol’s name is a bizarre accident of fate. Ashoke, as a young man in India, survives a terrible train accident and is
saved only because the rescuers notice the crumpled page of a book falling from his hand. This book is the collected
short stories of Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. This accident marks Ashoke physically with a lifelong limp and
emotionally with a sense of mystery about his survival when all others in the same railroad car perished.

When his son is born in Boston, Ashoke must name the child on the birth certificate before the infant is released
from the hospital. Indian children are given a pet name for the family, with the formal or “good” name chosen later,
when the child’s personality has been formed. The grandmother in India has been chosen to name the boy, but her
letter has not yet arrived. Ashoke names his son for the author whose book saved his life.

This name is, for Gogol, a despised symbol of his cultural alienation, neither Indian nor American but Russian.
Worse still, as he learns in high school, the author, although a genius, was mentally disturbed and suicidal. The
narrative spans the first thirty-two years of Gogol’s life, following him as a young child, then a schoolboy, continuing
through his college years and his early career as an architect. While Gogol is the focus of the story, the narrator,
writing in the third person as a distant observer, departs from this position at times to explore the lives of other major
characters who are on their own journeys, trying to make sense of their lives.

Ashoke earns his degree in engineering and becomes a tenured professor at a small-town New England college,
and the family establishes a home on Pemberton Road. A man of the working world, Ashoke successfully adapts to
American ways in his public life. However, he and Ashima socialize only with their Bengali friends, immigrants who
share their traditions. Ashoke and Gogol are outwardly respectful to each other, but Ashoke is puzzled and
saddened by his son’s emotional distance. Ashima, a homemaker in the old world tradition, is torn between the old
ways and the new. She wears the sari throughout her life and cooks Indian food but adopts American customs for
the sake of her children. Her Thanksgiving turkey is seasoned with garlic and cumin, and she decorates an artificial
Christmas tree.

The scenes in the novel are fraught with the tension between the two cultures which causes conflict in the family life.
Ashima often accedes to her son’s wishes but sometimes stands her ground with indignation. When Gogol returns
from a grade-school field trip with a grave rubbing from a Puritan cemetery which he intends to display on the
refrigerator, Ashima is horrified. In Hindu tradition, the body is burned; she finds it barbaric that Americans display
artifacts of the dead in the place where food is cooked and consumed.

Ashoke, in a poignant scene, presents his son with a hardcover volume of Gogol’s short stories for his fourteenth
birthday, a special edition ordered from England and intended to commemorate the significance of his name. Gogol,
a thoroughly Americanized teenager preoccupied with his favorite Beatles recording, is indifferent to his father’s gift.
Ashoke quietly leaves the room, where he is not welcome. Although Gogol will eventually learn this story, the author
conveys a powerful sense of loss for a moment of love that might have united father and son.

The Gangulis maintain close ties with their families in India by telephone. The middle-of-the-night overseas calls
invariably bring news of serious illness or a death in the family, revealing Ashimi’s sense of loss and separation from
loved ones and her native traditions. Only on her return to India does she feel secure. However, Gogol and his
younger sister, Sonia, are bored and annoyed by their noisy, intrusive Bengali relatives. They crave their
hamburgers and pizza and hot showers. When they return to the United States, they purposely forget their Indian
experience—it seems irrelevant to their lives.

16
Although Gogol is enrolled in school under his formal name, Nikhil, it seems strange to him, and he continues to call
himself Gogol, much as he hates the name. His sister calls him by the unfortunate nickname of Goggles. When he is
eighteen and a freshman at Yale University, he changes his name legally to Nikhil. His roommates, and later his
adult friends, know him as Nikhil, but occasionally a family member calls him Gogol, and this requires an
embarrassing explanation.

Gogol’s headlong affair with Maxine Ratliff in New York City, where he works as an architect, illuminates the clash
between the two cultures that is at the heart of this story. Maxine is an editor of art books, and she and her parents
are upscale Americans whose lifestyle would make a good feature story in a trendy magazine. Maxine’s mother is a
textile curator at the Metropolitan Museum, and her father is a lawyer. The Ratliffs are as different from the Gangulis
as it is possible to imagine. Where Gogol’s parents refuse to acknowledge that he might have a sex life, the Ratliffs
are at ease with Maxine and Gogol’s affair, conducted casually in their home. The Ratliffs have frequent dinner
parties, featuring small portions of elegantly prepared food. They are wine connoisseurs and often appear to be
mildly intoxicated. The Gangulis are teetotalers, and Gogol has never seen them display physical affection. They
entertain their Bengali friends in large, noisy gatherings with an overabundance of food, which they chew with their
mouths open.

Seduced by their contrasting lifestyle and infatuated with Maxine, Gogol moves into the Ratliffs’ tastefully decorated
Manhattan town house. In one scene, Gogol and Maxine stop briefly at the house on Pemberton Road on their way
to a vacation in New Hampshire. Ashima is hurt that they will spend the holiday with Maxine’s family but responds
with polite hospitality. Gogol sees that his mother is overdressed and has cooked too much food. Ashima is deeply
offended when the young woman calls her by her first name but suffers the insult without comment.

The death of Ashoke is a wrenching experience for Gogol and a turning point in his life. During a visiting
professorship at an Ohio university, Ashoke is felled by a fatal heart attack. Ashima, who has remained in the family
home, is notified by telephone from the hospital; she finally reaches Gogol at the Ratliff home. Gogol must identify
his father’s body in the morgue and clear out the apartment where his father had lived temporarily. The precisely
detailed description of Ashoke’s body, the hospital rooms, and the bare furnishings of the apartment are a stark
reminder to Gogol of his loss, his discovery that he has never truly known his father. These scenes recall an earlier
event when young Gogol and his father had walked on the sands at Cape Cod to the lighthouse, as far as they could
go. Ashoke said, “Remember that you and I made this journey, that we went together to a place where there was
nowhere left to go.”

After Ashoke’s death, Maxine and Gogol gradually drift apart. Gogol’s reaction seems remote and puzzling: “His time
with her seems like a permanent part of him that no longer has any relevance, or currency. As if that time were a
name he’d ceased to use.” After the period of mourning for Ashoke, Gogol agrees, at his mother’s request, to meet
Moushumi, the daughter of Bengali friends whom he has known since childhood. The two are attracted to each
other, begin an affair, and marry in a traditional Indian ceremony. Moushumi, however, has had previous affairs and
a troubled history of mental breakdowns. She inexplicably sabotages her marriage through an affair with an older,
less attractive man.

The conclusion reaches for a symmetry that resolves the conflicts in the narrative. Ashima sells the family home and
will spend half the year in Calcutta with her friends and relatives, the other half with her children in the United States.
Sonia is engaged to Ben, a man of mixed Jewish and Chinese ancestry, and this promises to be a successful union.
Gogol, as he helps to dismantle the home on Pemberton Road, rediscovers the volume of short stories, his father’s
birthday gift, and begins to read.
17
Lahiri’s first book, The Interpreter of Maladies, is a collection of short stories which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000.
The Namesake, her first novel, has raised high critical expectations. Her style, often described as luminous and
graceful, is accomplished, especially in the precisely detailed word choices and descriptions of ordinary life that draw
the reader into the narrative. Lahiri grounds the reader with a sense of time and place by frequent mentions of
historical events, such as the assassinations of the 1960’s. She is a shrewd, often ironic, observer of the nuances of
both Indian traditions and American pop culture. The Gangulis, for instance, are baffled by teenage Sonia’s
disruption of the household when she dyes her entire wardrobe black, and they find it incredible that the president of
the United States is addressed as Jimmy.

Critics have high praise for Lahiri’s richly sensuous, epicurean descriptions of the preparation and consumption of
food. The author says that she is an enthusiastic cook. Like food, train travel, both in India and the United States, is a
recurring motif. In an interview, Lahiri said that she sees her narrative as resembling the incomplete glimpses of the
passing scene through the window of a train.

Several critics find that the gaps in the narrative give the impression of incompleteness. Others say that the third-
person, distant narrative voice creates a flat, unemotional tone. However, The Namesake has received enthusiastic
popular acclaim, and most critics agree that it fulfills the promise of her earlier, highly praised work.

As a portrait of immigration and a personal quest for identity, the novel raises interesting questions. Given the
genuine pain that Ashima and Ashoke suffer in attempting to reconcile their cultural heritage with the American
dream, it is worth considering whether Gogol’s angst over the oddity of his name should evoke the reader’s
sympathy. Ashoke’s common-sense interpretation of Gogol’s complaints when he announces he will change his
name is instructive: “The only person who didn’t take Gogol seriously, the only person who tormented him, the only
person chronically aware of and afflicted by the embarrassment of this name . . . was Gogol.” As Gogol takes up his
father’s gift and begins to read, there is hope that he has reached a mature resting place between the two cultures
that are his heritage.

Review Sources

Booklist 99, nos. 19/20 (June 1, 2003): 1710.

Kirkus Reviews 71, no. 11 (June 1, 2003): 773.

Library Journal 128, no. 12 (July 15, 2003): 123.

The Nation 277, no. 13 (October 27, 2003): 36-38.

New Leader 86, no. 5 (September/October, 2003): 31-32.

The New York Times Book Review, September 28, 2003, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly 250, no. 27 (July 7, 2003): 48-49.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, p. M1.

18
Time 162, no. 12 (September 22, 2003): 76.

The Washington Post, September 14, 2003, p. BW10.

Analysis: Setting
Most of The Namesake takes place in parts of New England. As the story opens, Ashoke Ganguli is a graduate
student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ashoke and his wife
Ashima live in a collegiate setting. It is 1968, and the couple that lives above them are professionals but follow a
stereotypical hippie lifestyle—laid back about parenting and not terribly concerned about keeping a clean house. It is
a tumultuous time in the United States. The war in Vietnam is raging. The Chicago Democratic National Convention
erupts in violence. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy are assassinated. The late 1960s were a time of high
hopes and bitter disappointments, a dichotomy mirrored in the characters' minds as they struggle with their new
homeland.

Later, Ashoke and Ashima move away from the city, which had provided easy walking access to work, shops, and
libraries. After the move, Ashoke must drive to work. Ashima, who does not drive, feels isolated. It is during this time
that the Gangulis make a point of inviting every Bengalese family they know to their home for Bengalese as well as
American celebrations. Ashima's only acquaintances are Bengalese. The couple have a son, whom they name
Gogol, a decision that will become an integral part of the novel. Soon after, Ashima gives birth to a daughter whom
they name Sonia.

The family travels back to India from time to time. Ashoke and Ashima are overwhelmed with emotions when they
reunite with their parents and siblings. Gogol and Sonia, especially when they are older, find little to like about
India. It is too hot and too crowded for their comfort.

The story continues into the 1980s and 1990s. Gogol attends Yale, in New Have, Connecticut; then he does
graduate work in architecture at Columbia University in New York City. Gogol likes New York and finds a small
apartment there. He works for a large architecture firm in the city. Around the middle of the 1990s, Gogol begins his
first serious relationship with Maxine. He lives most of his time in a beautiful old home with Maxine and her parents.
In the summer, the four of them spend time in New Hampshire, where Maxine's grandparents live. It is cooler up
there in the mountains.

Things do not work out with Maxine. Gogol marries Moushumi, a Bengalese woman. Gogol and Moushumi find a
better apartment in New York. They live a very metropolitan life, walking around the city for entertainment. After the
marriage ends, Gogol often returns to his mother's home in Massachusetts. The story ends in 2000, with Ashima
selling the family home and moving back to India. Gogol returns to New York.

Bibliography
19
Langley, Lee. 2004. "Review of The Namesake." Spectator, Vol. 294, No. 9154, p. 39. Langley comments on the
author's professional skill in writing.

Peaco, Ed. 2004. "Review of The Namesake." Antioch Review, Vol. 62, No. 3, p. 581. Peaco provides a positive
review.

Ruddy, Christopher. 2003. "Review of The Namesake." Commonweal, Vol. 130, No. 22, p. 18. Ruddy praises the
author's creative genius.

Simon, Linda. 2004. "Review of The Namesake." The World & I, Vol. 19, No. 1, p. 230. Simon writes a detailed
summary of the novel.

Song, Min Hyoung. 2007. "The Children of 1965: Allegory, Postmodernism, and Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake."
Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 345–371. This is a detailed study for readers who want an
extended, college-level analysis.

Van Buskirk, Audrry. 2003. "Strangers in America." The Stranger, Vol. 13, No. 3, p. 27. Van Buskirk provides a brief
review of the novel.

Wiltz, Teresa. 2003. "The Writer Who Began with a Hyphen." Washington Post, October 8, p. C.01. Wiltz interviews
Jhumpa Lahiri.

20