12 AP English
The Namesake
Notes and Study Guide
Read the following information as a supplement to the novel, The Namesake (we recommend that you read
this handout before you read the novel). You should also read the handouts, Tips for a Successful Summer
Reading and Marginalia. We expect that a) you will give the novel a thorough reading, b) you will have
evidence of text interaction (notes in your entire book), and c) you will come to class prepared to begin the
deepest level of analysis.
Jhumpa Lahiri (b. 1967) – Lahiri was born Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri in London to
Bengali Indian immigrants, but moved to America when she was three when her father,
Amar, took a job as a librarian for the University of Rhode Island. Lahiri began going
by her “pet name,” Jhumpa, when her kindergarten teacher found her “good names,”
Nilanjana and Sudeshna, too difficult to pronounce. Her mother wanted Lahiri and her
siblings to be raised with a strong sense of their Bengali heritage and the family made
frequent trips back to Calcutta. Similar to Charlotte Brontë, Lahiri began writing stories
and vignettes as a child and (unlike Charlotte Brontë) furthered her writing through a
degree in English Literature from Barnard College (1989), M.A.s in English and Comparative Literature, an
M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Literature, all from Boston College. Lahiri
attempted to publish her work for many years before her short story collection The Interpreter of Maladies
finally went to print and won both the 1999 PEN/Hemingway award for short fiction and a 2000 Pulitzer
Prize (she was the first Indian woman to do so). Lahiri published The Namesake , which has several
autobiographical undertones, in 2003. A second collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth, debuted
in 2008 at number one on the New York Times best seller list. Lahiri currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. with
her husband, journalist Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, and their two children Octavio and Noor.
You can read a more detailed biography of Lahiri at the following web sites:
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lahiri.html
Indian Culture and History
For background on India in general and Calcutta specifically, check out the following links:
India and Indian culture -- http://www.indianembassy.org/newsite/default.asp
Maps of India --
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/india.html
History of Calcutta--
http://calcuttaweb.com/history.shtml
Pictures of Calcutta --
http://www.kolkataweb.com/picture/
Guide to Indian Cuisine -- http://www.food-india.com/
As You Read . . .
You are expected to interact with the text at the deepest level, which means that you should underline and
add margin notes regarding anything that you find significant. To help you in that direction, we have added
the following list of motifs, symbols, and issues.
Motifs and Symbols
Names
Identity (ways of marking identify beyond just a name)
Food /the rituals surrounding food/rituals in general
Trains
Shoes
Books/reading/literature
“The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol
Issues
Home and family and what constitutes each
The immigrant experience
o 1st generation Americans with a foot in each world
o A new view of America
Cross-cultural rituals around courtship and marriage
Cross-cultural rituals around death and dying
Other Items to Note
The novel is a bildungsroman (coming of age novel), just as Jane Eyre is (A Prayer for Owen Meany
could classify as a bildungsroman as well). A) Make note of Gogol’s development and how Lahiri
brings it to light and B) compare Gogol’s coming of age process to Jane’s (and, on some level,
Johnny’s from APFOM).
Lahiri has a definitive style and writes most of the novel in the present tense. Consider the effect of
writing the novel in the present rather than the past tense and pay attention to those moments when
she switches in to past tense. What purpose does she seem to have? What effect does she create?
Lahiri tells the story from several perspectives, though she keeps to a 3rd person limited point of view
in each case. What effect does she create by doing so? How do the switches serve the story?