Realizing national or racial identity and true self is one of the most important processes in life of every person. Identity helps a person to find his/her place in life and accommodate to the world around. Identity is one of the complex notions which involve a sense of group or collective identity based on one’s perception that he or she shares a common heritage with other people. We build our characters and behavior patterns using memories from the past and life experiences of our close friends and relatives. For many people, the search for self is s painful and distressing process but this is the only way we can discover who we are and what our personal legend is. The novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri vividly portrays life challenges and problems faced by a young man, Gogol, who tries to find his true self and unique cultural identity. In this book, Lahiri focuses on Gogol’s journey to find who he really is through his behaviors, family relations, and love affairs. Thesis As a second generation Indian, Gogol needs to reject his cultural values and norms in order to find his identity and the self.
Jhumpa Lahiri portrays that a name is one of the main determinants of personal identity and the self. If a person does not like or accept his name, he automatically rejects his inner self and feels uncomfortable. In The Namesake, it is clear that Gogol never likes his name in spite of the fact that this name is very important for Gogol’s father, Ashoke, reflecting old traditions and values of the family. The novel portrays that identity refers to the quality or manner of Gogol’s identification with the cultural groups. Therefore, identity generally describes a variety of modes of identification. Gogol had never known how much his name meant to him until his father told him a true story about his name and its importance for the entire family. I think Gogol felt lot of stress for his name, and it made him an outsider. His grandfather, “instead of thanking God he thanks Gogol, the Russian writer who had saved his life, when Patty enters the waiting room. 21” (Lahiri 21). This was the first step in his search for personal identity and self identification. In The Namesake, when the judge asked the reason why Gogol wished to change his name, he said “I hate the name Gogol, I’ve always hated it” (Lahiri 102). When I read this part, I can easily understand the meaning of his words because he really wants to escape from the name Gogol which has become a real burden for him. As he becomes Nikhil, he can be a more confident person. I think this movement is necessary for him to discover his true identity and the self.
Rejection of cultural traditions and values of the family is another step which helps Gogol to find his true self and understand his personal uniqueness. In addition to hateing his name, Gogol tries to keep away from traditional Indian life style stipulated by his family in America. Gogol admires American life style, and the life of his parents seems too conservative and old fashioned. He does not want to tell his friends about his cultural traditions and values afraid of mockery and criticism. This attitudes leads to isolation between Gogol and his family and reflects communication gap between himself and his father. For instance, when he visited Maxine’s house, Lahiri described Gogol’s mind that “it is something he cannot picture himself doing at this stage in his life” (Lahiri 132). The life of Maxine’s family represents the life Gogol always wants to have and admires.
Gogol loves this style of life because it reflects innovative ideas and American dream valued by Gogol. Lahiri portrays that to the second generation, the American-raised and American-born generation, the experience of their parents has proved murky, humbling, and frequently embarrassing. The children of the first generation immigrants are too focused on hewing out their own course in American society; few could appreciate the challenges and strengths of old traditions. Most of them conceive of that period in which poor illiterate immigrants, with little or no English, succeeded by ingenuity and hard work. The second generation also prefers to talk of American values and norms, not old Indian traditions. Few appreciate the way in which the real cultural traditions actually facilitated the adjustment of those immigrants to American life.
Something in the second generation’s mental struggle with its own past deflected it from penetrating beyond the shabby dress, the foreignness, and fatigue, to the romance and adventure of life on the road that captivated the memories of their parents and has been preserved in Indian household. Gogol “hates having to tell people that it [his name] doesn’t mean anything “in Indian.” He hates having to wear a nametag on his sweater at Model United Nations Day at school” (Lahiri 76). The decision to become American — to surrender their nationality and native culture — is an act of will that may be explained by the immigrant’s motivation for migrating. That motivation, in turn, would be expected to exert a powerful influence on how the group would assimilate. The particular needs, anxieties, and expectations of the Irish, for example, who fled from famine, or whole communities of east European Jews who sought refuge from religious persecution, contrast sharply with those of immigrants whose social uprooting was less traumatic or self-imposed.
A conflict between the new world in America and family traditions becomes a real burden for Gogol. Because of the conservatism of their tradition and, in part, because they migrated in the declining years, the family members cannot assimilate and adopt American traditions. If Ashoka seems to operate by his own mores and standards, his faults can at times be redeemed by the color and novelty he brings into the routine lives of his family. Gogol’s love affairs and his relations with white girls underline his desire to become a real American and change his cultural values. Ruth, his first love at college, and Maxine can be seen as a desire of Gogol to isolate from the family and accommodate to a new world. “Disliked Maxine, his mother says that that isn’t the point, the point is for him to move on with his life. He works to remain calm during these conversations, not to accuse her of meddling” (Lahiri 191). Thus, he can find happiness and true love only with a native Indian girl, Moushumi Mazoomdar.
A sorrow, felt by Gogol, is caused by a cultural and personal conflict and his inability to assimilate and accept two cultures and their values. The family dictates its norms as much by their ignorance of American ways as by traditional values. Continence and temperance appear to be the rule; both undoubtedly further restrained by the morality of small-town America, as well as by the immigrants’ fear of “getting into trouble.” The Indian immigrants’ frugality is legendary. The book portrays that the old-timers make no effort to conceal the anguish, pain, bewilderment, disappointment, and insecurity of a people roaming in a strange world for which they had been ill prepared. Nevertheless, theirs is no litany of despair. Even the most biting and embarrassing stories, expense has been embellished and transformed by fertile imaginations. In the process, anxieties become dissolved in wit and irony.
The hardships and sacrifices may have depressed Gogol some of the time, but it did not discourage his life, By search for self Gogol finds his true identity and Personal Legend; he not only learns joys and sorrows of his life as a second-generation immigrant, but also finds significance of family who always supports and protects him.“ Within Bengali families, individual names are sacred, inviolable. They are not meant to be inherited or shared” (Lahiri 28). This quote portrays that Indian families value a name and all members of the family supporting and guiding them in difficult life situations. Many complained; the impatient and disillusioned complained bitterly, but the percentage of those who ultimately traded the hardships of America for the prospects of a future is small. After many years of struggle and rejections of his cultural heritage, Gogol understands his unique identity and the self, importance of cultural values and native traditions. For Gogol, it is a matter of honor to succeed in America. That is his strength. His rigorous habits — hard work and self-denial — alleviated despair and spared his entrapment.
In sum, his curious appearance and mannerisms in themselves evoked questions whose answers both intrigued and amused the family members. By no means did all Americans appreciate his intrusion into their daily routines, and many were openly hostile; yet on balance, Gogol and his parents are received with civility, kindness, and sympathy. The novel vividly portrays that identity attempt to explain the various ways in which immigrant life Gogol can identify with other Indians and adopt or abandon identities resulting from victimization; Thus, the search for self is the opnly possible way for Gogol to understand his true personality and accept national traditions and values as the core of his life and destiny.
Works Cited
Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Boston New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.