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“Not all plants, let alone humans, survive transplantation, and, as Lahiri’s stories show, for some the process of transplantation is impossible or irremediably damaging”(Ambreen Hai). Identity is always difficult for everyone, but being culturally displaced, as immigrants are just adds to the pressure of fitting in. Or even more so for those who grow up in two worlds at the same time. The book The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, explores the ideas of identity, the clash of cultures, isolation, the importance of names, and family. Both of the Ganguli parents, especially Ashima, and their son Gogol, struggle with assimilating to this new culture. Ashima and Gogol are parallel characters because of Ashima’s sentiment of alienation in the United States, and how that emotion is similarly adopted by Gogol.
Ashima had known from the beginning that America was not the place for her. Throughout her pregnancy, she feared having to raise Gogol in “a country where she is related to no one, where she knows so little, where life seems so tentative and spare”(6). When Gogol is born, she loathes how her child is far from her family, and away from all she is familiar with. Worried for her baby’s childhood and growing up “She has never known of a person entering the world so alone, so deprived.’ (p.25) The moment Ashima and Ashoke are home from the hospital, she says to him; “I don’t want to raise Gogol alone in this country. It’s not right. I want to go back. (33)” Throughout her life she is at war with the pain of being unwanted and alone, which is common in people’s lives as “People in diaspora encounter cultural conflicts when they have to leave their cultural values and practice the new ones”(Hamid Farahmandian). The cultural conflicts come from people being unfamiliar with other cultures because of them, these people with different lifestyles are out of the ordinary, so they are judged and looked at differently. “Therefore, they feel distracted and lost, nostalgic, and try to resist the discourse of power”(Hamid Farahmandian). Being seen as different from everyone around starts to increase negative thoughts such as depression, loneliness, and alienation as Ashima has. Everyday people, when switching to a new culture take on these hardships, Ashima is just another example of this factor. Before Ashima threw her final Christmas Party in the house on Pemberton Road. She ‘feels lonely suddenly, horribly, permanently alone, and briefly, turned away from the mirror, she sobs for her husband”(274). At that moment she felt ‘both impatience and indifference for all the days she still must live”(274). Ashima doesn’t want to be in Calcutta with her family or in the United States, both could be called home for her, but yet, she still seems out of place. By blood, she is a Bengalian but she’s been living in America for most of her life. By living in a split world, it appears to be hard for her to have a grasp on her true identity and where she belongs. Ashima shows that she has an ongoing sentiment of depression throughout her life, always being out of place, being unwanted, and producing thoughts of being permanently alone.
Gogol’s emotions are not only described as alienation but also by depression and cultural pressure. Gogol always found it very difficult to belong somewhere and always felt left out. When Gogol was little, he felt that his name was what alienated him;’ no one he knows in the world, in Russia or India or America or anywhere, shares his name. Not even the source of his namesake”(78). He doesn’t believe anyone would understand he’s worries because his emotions are isolating him to think so, this carries out all through his life. His isolation makes him think that he is the only one in the world going through the same emotions as him. But when in reality that’s just depression and isolation talking. Gogol’s marriage to Moushumi didn’t give him much more comfort to his worries. He would find little bits of Moushumi’s life with Graham hiding around the apartment. He starts having thoughts in his mind of him wondering if ‘he represents some sort of capitulation or defeat”(229). Gogol starts feeling like the only reason Moushumi married him is because she has given up on life. Giving dissatisfaction in their marriage for both of them. Gogol’s feelings progressed during adulthood as they should, but he took a turn for the worst as he started falling deeper into sadness like his mom did.
Gogol and Ashima have very different experiences in the world but are still connected. Ashima’s unhappiness is caused by: homesickness, discomfort in a new country, and loneliness. Even more so when the customs that are important to her are pushed to the side to help her children fit in with American culture like “the birth of Christ, an event the children look forward to far more than the worship of Durga and Saraswati”(59). Ashoke and Ashima decided that for the sake of their children, they would adopt American customs out of pressure, and fear of their children being cast out because of their family’s culture. The parents’ choice played a large role in Ashima’s feelings of homesickness and her missing the things her culture celebrated. But for others, like Gogol, unhappiness stems from not fitting in. Regardless of the changes his parents made, his cultural differences are what set him apart from everybody else and caused his insecurities towards himself. “He’s come to hate questions about his name, hates having constantly to explain”(49). People asking him his name and the meaning only serves as a reminder that he is different from everyone else and he can’t change it. Gogol also begins struggling with his culture because “He hates having to tell people it means nothing ‘in Indian’” (49). Gogol is unusually self-conscious about his name, particularly in America. In America, Gogol is an uncommon name, which leads Americans to ask the question what does it mean in Indian? Gogol would not struggle with his name if people would accept it for what it is; therefore, making him less self-conscious by not asking.
Both Ashima and Gogol are isolated and alienated from both Indian and American cultures. There isn’t a place in the world for them, not India or America. Alienation seeps into their relationships with their family and their lovers, causing all kinds of dissatisfaction,n and overall just their lives. Both Ashima and Gogol face Alienation in their lives. For Ashima, it was being homesick, and for Gogol, it was being self-conscious. Regardless of the reason though, they both seemed to fight through it their whole lives all because they were a part of two different cultures and felt the need to appease them both, instead of just being who they are. If they would have just lived their lives for them and their families, they would have lived a much happier life.
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