Dheepikha Shivakumar 1A
Quickwrite #1 - Synthesis and Enlightenment Assignment
Please choose a character (or a major work - broader can be more difficult, so be specific if you write
about an entire work!) that you most identify with and explain why using examples from the text and
from your personal experience.
Also, share your most "Enlightened/Aha!" moment - what concept, lesson learned, or discussion
has stuck with you after almost a year in this course?
This is NOT formal writing, but the quality of your examples matters - you are showing me what
important insights you've made and yourself as an English scholar/student. 30 minutes to complete
5-10 minutes to revise.
Email to me by the end of classrachel1.debusk@cms.k12.nc.us
The most relatable character I have come across is Gogol from The Namesake. As Jhumpa
Lahiri takes us through the phases and journey of Gogol from his birth till his adult life, I, as a
reader, can see his transformation in thought,beliefs, and character. Even before Gogol’s birth, I
found similarities between my family and Gogol’s as both our parents are first generation
immigrants who left their family and friends in India to come start a new life in America. I identified
with the isolation and longing Ashima felt for her home country as I witnessed my parents doing the
same. Their yearly Calcutta visits reminded me of my visits to India where it would be a very joyful
time of meeting relatives again and enjoying the delicious food. With the birth of Gogol, I felt even
more connected to the novel as I identified and connected with his struggles as an Indian American
child growing up in America. His dislike for his name, his culture, his family’s traditions, practices,
and values were very similar to the way I felt about mine as a young child. I did not like my name as
people could not pronounce it properly, my parents’ conservative and overprotective attitude was
unsettling to me, and our cultural practices, I felt, were overbearing. As I saw Gogol transform
through each phase of his life, I saw the things he endured that changed the way he felt about his
name and family, like his wife’s affair and his father’s death. The only people that stuck with Gogol
throughout the entire journey was his mom, dad, and sister. Gogol’s realization at the end that he
had failed to appreciate the sacrifices his parents made for him and the wonderful life they have
given him struck me hard because I had done the same. I had taken my life for granted, not noticing
the hard work and sacrifice my parents had done behind the scenes. From reading the novel, I took
the lesson Gogol learned in his adult life into my life in order to not make the same mistakes as him.
Now, not only am I proud of my unique name, I understand the importance and value of my family
and everything they have done for me to have a blessed life and future.
A discussion that has stuck with me throughout the course of this year is Invisible Man.
While reading Invisible Man, I felt the book was dull, long, and unnecessarily complicated. The
paragraphs went on forever, the sentences had meanings five layers deep. and the characters did not
have much character. In other words, I read the book for the sake of reading it and longed for it to
be over. However, when working on the MWDS for the novel, the questions in the MWDS
provoked my thoughts about the novel and helped me dig deeper into what the author is trying to
say about African American life at the time. As I read the book over again, I dug deeper into the
meaning of certain characters, events, and messages the author was trying to convey and the book
was much more interesting the second time around because of this. Rather than the message/theme
I learned from the book, I learned the skills of interpretation and analysis from the novel which are
always very useful is AP Literature. I practiced these skills entirely through this novel and by the end,
those skills were strong as ever. After that novel, I have applied them effectively to almost all texts
we have done from then on, writing better essays as a result. Mrs.Garrison’s critiques on my essays
improved my writing skills, making me even more prepared for the AP Exam. Invisible Man, a very
complex and long novel, really helped me understand the two most important skills of the class and
as a result, I have improved in my writing.