The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Essential questions:
 Is it possible to reconcile or assimilate two cultures without conflict?
 How does a name define a person?
 How is one’s identity formed and maintained?
 How do traditions, the past and history inform or change the present?
1. Read the poem, “Child of the Americas” by Aurora Levins Morales, and consider how it may relate to Gogol
and cultural identity. Respond to the questions following the poem. (see handout)
2. Diaspora & Cultural Conflicts occur early in the novel, yet continue throughout as Gogol seeks to define
himself. Consider each carefully:
a) Gogol’s birthday (72-73)
b) The trip to India (81-88)
c) English class (88-93)
d) The Party (93-96)
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What does marginality mean? (see p.118-119) What is ABCD and how does Gogol feel about this
group? Why? How does Gogol feel about his cultural and familial background?
Define diaspora: the movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or
ancestral homeland; the related crisis of dual identity experienced by people as they settle in their
new country; cultural dilemmas, sense of displacement, generational differences, leading to
transformation in their identities, ways of thinking and expectations. While people may live in a new
country, they often feel a deep, lasting connection and loyalty to their language, religion, custom
and folklore. Diasporas and their descendents often experience displacement, fragmentation,
marginalization and discontinuity in their new culture.
View excerpts from the Concert for Bangladesh http://youtu.be/psUS20Zy91o Throughout the
novel, each page seems to speak to the senses, whether a description of a ceremony, a particular
meal, or a style of music.
How does the American Dream relate to the Ganguli family?
3. Naming Gogol
a) Consider the following: “There’s no such thing as a perfect name. I think that human beings should
be allowed to name themselves when they turn eighteen” (245). Respond to this quotation for five
minutes.
b) What was the problem with naming the baby? How is naming handled in most Bengali families?
 “Names can wait. In India parents take their time. It wasn’t unusual for years to pass
before the right name, the best possible name, was determined.” (25)
 “Within Bengali families, individual names are sacred, inviolable. They are meant to be
inherited or shared” (28)
c) What is the difference between a “good” name and a “pet” name?
d) How does Gogol feel when he gets a new, “good” name in Kindergarten? Why? How does he later
feel about this “good” name and why has his feeling changed?
 “At times his name, an entity shapeless and weightless, manages nevertheless to distress him
physically, like the scratchy tag of a shirt he has been forced permanently to wear. At times he
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wishes he could disguise it, shorten it somehow… But Gogol, already short and catchy, resists
mutation.” (76)
Read through the discussion Ashoke and Gogol have after Gogol’s birthday celebration (p.7478). The dialogue itself is very short, if you eliminate flashback and other language. Although the
conversation is brief, it takes up four pages of text. How could this conversation have gone
differently, without changing the words of the dialogue itself?
GOGOL:- “Come in”
ASHOKE:- “I ordered it from the bookstore, just for you. It’s difficult to find in hardcover these
days. It’s a British publication, a very small press. It took four months to arrive. I hope you like
it.”
GOGOL:- “Thanks, Baba.”
GOGOL:- “Thanks again.”
ASHOKE:- “I took the liberty of reading it first. It has been many years since I have read these
stories. I hope you don’t mind.”
GOGOL:- “No problem.”
ASHOKE- “I feel a special kinship with Gogol, more than any other writer. Do you know why?”
GOGOL:- “You like his stories?”
ASHOKE- “Apart from that. He spent most of his adult life outside his homeland. Like me.”
GOGOL:- “Right.”
ASHOKE- “And there is another reason.”
GOGOL:- “What’s that?”
ASHOKE- “No other reason. Good night. Do you know what Dostoyevsky once said? We all
came out of Gogol’s overcoat.”
GOGOL:- “What’s that supposed to mean?”
ASHOKE- “It will make sense to you one day. Many happy returns of the day.”
e) What is the origin of the name Gogol and why does his father wait so long to tell him?
f) Is Gogol a different person when he becomes Nikhil? Explain. Compare and contrast Gogol and
Nikhil. What does his rejection of the name Gogol signify? (his discomfort to fit into two different
cultures; his attempt to reject his roots and his family’s expectations and live as an American)
g) The idea of pet name/good name “is almost too perfect a metaphor for the experience of growing
up as the child of immigrants, having a divided identity, divided loyalties, etc” (Lahiri).
4. The Name Game
a) Visit www.behindthename.com - Indian naming website. Investigate several names in the class and
recall our move-up day writing on our names.
b) How do the names of the characters relate to their personalities? (consider Nikhil, Ashoke, Ashima,
Sonali, Moushumi)
 Ashoke & Ashima p.26
 Nikhil p.56
 Sonali p.62
 Moushumi p.240
5. Gogol’s relationship with Maxine (prior to class, students should gather quotations from the text about this
relationship and their characters during this time. Focus on meeting Maxine, their home and family life,
cultural issues & exile from his own life)
a) Meeting Maxine: ”…Maxine has a way of focusing her attention on him completely, her pale,
watchful eyes holding his gaze, making him feel, for those brief minutes, the absolute center of her
world” (129)
b) Family life: “Why on earth would they mind,” Maxine says about her parents (130)
c) their beautiful, elegant home; their way of eating, talking at dinner (133)
d) “Quickly, simultaneously, he falls in love with Maxine, the house, and Gerald and Lydia’s manner of
living, for to know her and love her is to know and love all of these things” (137)
e) “The Ratliffs own the moon that floats over the lake, and the sun and the clouds. It is a place that
has been good to them, as much a part of them as a member of the family” (155)
f) Cultural issues: “He is conscious of the fact that his immersion in Maxine’s family is a betrayal of his
own” (141)
g) “The restrictions amuse her; she sees them as a single afternoon’s challenge, an anomaly never to
be repeated. She does not associate him with his parents’ habits; she still cannot believe that she is
to be the first girlfriend he’s ever brought home” (146)
h) Exile from his own life: “Now that it is just the two of them it seems to him, more than ever, that
they are living together. And yet for some reason it is dependence, not adulthood, he feels. He feels
free of expectation, of responsibility, in willing exile from his own life” (142)
i) “And then he remembers that his parents can’t possibly reach him: he has not given them the
number, and the Ratliffs are unlisted. That here at Maxine’s side, in this cloistered wilderness, he is
free.” (158)
6. Gogol and Moushumi
a) Arranged marriages: in Indian culture, marriage is a matter of karmic destiny. In an arranged
marriage, you are not expected to be in love at the wedding, but to learn to love each other over
time. Historically, the practice began as a way of uniting and maintaining upper caste families. In a
traditional, arranged marriage, the bride and groom would not even see each other until the day of
the wedding. Today, most couples have the opportunity to say no or choose their own partner.
b) Although their relationship wasn’t arranged, how does the wedding take on an arranged quality?
How involved are Gogol and Moushumi in planning their own wedding? How does the relationship
seem to meet the expectations of their culture and families?
c) Lahiri writes, “Suddenly, sitting next to Moushumi, he realizes what it means, and he is astonished
by his parents courage, the obedience that must have been involved in doing such a thing.” (222)
What does this tell us about Gogol’s cultural identity?
d) How do Gogol and Moushumi’s parties compare to their parents’? To parties at Maxine’s?
e) Discuss the pigeon metaphor (p.272-273) and what it suggests.
f) Gogol and Moushumi seem perfect for each other. Both characters are somewhat successful IndianAmerican hybrids with a common cultural and familial connection and similar life experiences. In the
end, however, this marriage doesn’t work out. Analyze their relationship. What went wrong with
their relationship? What was missing?
7. Gogol’s Father’s Death
a) How does his father’s death change Gogol and affect his identity crisis?
b) How do Gogol’s actions change as a result?
8. The Novel’s Conclusion
a) Gogol views his life as being “formed and shaped” by a series of accidents. “They were things for
which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept,
interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that semed out of place and
b)
c)
d)
e)
wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.” (287) To what “accidents” is he
referring here? Explain what he means here. (compare to the line from John Lennon’s “Beautiful
Boy” – “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
What does Ashima’s move suggest about her identity? (275)
What is home for Ashima? (278)
How does the end of the novel reflect Gogol’s identity crisis?
How will Gogol think of his identity in the future? How will he define himself and what name will he
use?
9. Discussion/Essay topics:
a) Throughout the novel, Gogol has had several different girlfriends/lovers. What was Gogol looking for
in each of these women? What attracted Gogol to them and what did the relationship offer?
Analyze 3 of Gogol’s relationships and discuss why each woman was right for Gogol at the time, yet
why the relationship didn’t last. (see activity: The Dating Game
b) Why is the novel called The Namesake? Analyze the role of names in the text and how they seem to
define individuals. Pay particular attention to Gogol and his names, and how each influences him.
Was Gogol an appropriate choice for him after all? Which name suits him best at different times in
the novel? At the end?
c) In changing his name to Nikhil, Gogol epitomizes the self/other dynamics and the role of the hybrid.
He has taken his Indian good name and used it to assimilate the cultural traditions of the margin
(the margin being America to his Indian center).
 Analyze Gogol’s hybrid identity in the novel
 Discuss the self/other or margin/center dynamics in the text
 Track the evolution of Gogol to Nikhil through the novel’s conclusion. How does Gogol differ
from Nikhil? How does each identity grow and change? How are these identities maintained at
the novel’s conclusion?
d) Gogol says, “in these moments [with Moushumi], these glimpses, he believes he has known no
greater intimacy” (211). Investigate intimacy in The Namesake. Throughout the novel, intimacy can
be found in both physical and nonphysical ways. Must intimacy be physical? How is intimacy
expressed differently across cultures? How might naming be considered an intimate experience?
e) A common event throughout The Namesake is parties. Parties occur for many reasons and with
many different groups of people. Analyze the social, cultural, and familial roles of parties in the
novel. How are the parties Gogol attends different at various points throughout his life? How does
this relate to his character and identity?
f) Consider the symbols and motifs in the novel: trains, books, tradition, money, names, coats, etc.
Examine three in depth and show how they help develop themes.
g) We learn at the beginning of the book that Ashima "never thinks of her husband´s name when she
thinks of her husband, even though she knows perfectly well what it is. She has adopted his
surname but refuses, for propriety´s sake, to utter his first. It´s not the type of thing Bengali wives
do. Like a kiss or caress in a Hindi movie, a husband´s name is something intimate and therefore
unspoken, cleverly patched over" (2). Through Jhumpa Lahiri´s analogy "Like a kiss or caress in a
Hindi movie, a husband´s name is something intimate and therefore unspoken, cleverly patched
over", we learn about two aspects of Bengali culture: physical gestures in public and the relationship
between a husband and a wife. Using this analogy as your point of departure, write an essay in
which you compare Bengali culture with American culture in these two ways. How, in fact, would
this analogy be rewritten to reflect American culture? h) Ashima´s thoughts also betray her definition of the word "foreigner": "Though no longer pregnant,
she continues, at times, to mix Rice Krispies and peanuts and onions in a bowl. For being a foreigner,
i)
j)
Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy – a perpetual wait, a constant burden,
a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been
ordinary life, only to discover that that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more
complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that
elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect" (49-50). What
do you think of Ashima´s definition of a "foreigner?" Do you agree with it? Does her definition
connect with yours? Show in an essay how your experience as a "foreigner" has been similar to or
different from hers.
The Namesake is very neat and tight in structure. It starts with an accident which nearly kills Ashoke
and the book, The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol, which saves his life. Years later, when his baby son
is born and Ashoke is thinking of this past miracle, he names his son Gogol after the book's author.
At the end of The Namesake, Gogol, who has shown no interest in the book throughout his life, finds
by accident in his room the copy his father had once given him as a gift. The novel ends with Gogol's
eyes focused on the book: "For now, he starts to read" (291). What symmetry! Isn't Russian writer
Nikolai Gogol a central character in The Namesake, as Gogol rebels against Nikolai Gogol and the
Russian literary culture that he represents? The force of the Russian literary presence throughout
The Namesake seems to add another dimension to Gogol's conflict, and his life seems to be "saved"
at the end because of it. What do you think? Is Gogol saved? What will his life be like in the future
now that he is willing to read Nikolai Gogol's book?
Read the following passage describing Nikhil’s experience the night after his 27th birthday
party. Then discuss the question that follows.
“That night, lying in the cabin beside Maxine, he is woken by the sound of the phone ringing persistently in the
main house. He gets out of bed, convinced that it’s his parents calling to wish him a happy birthday, mortified
that it will wake Gerald and Lydia from sleep. He stumbles onto the lawn, but when his bare feet strike the cold
grass there is silence, and he realizes the ringing he’d heard had been a dream. He returns to bed, squeezing in
beside Maxine’s warm, sleeping body, and drapes his arm around her narrow waist, fits his knees behind
hers. Through the window he sees that dawn is creeping into the sky, only a handful of stars still visible, the
shapes of the surrounding pines and cabins growing distinct. A bird begins to call. And then he remembers that
his parents can’t possibly reach him: he has not given them the number, and the Ratliffs are unlisted. That here
at Maxine’s side, in this cloistered wilderness, he is free” (158).
Respond to this excerpt. Is Nikhil truly free? What does he mean by this and why might he be mistaken?
(You are Nikhil’s friend. Tell him why he is not “free” as long as he continues to divorce himself from his
parents’ existence.)
Child of the Americas
by Aurora Levins Morales
I am a child of the Americas,
a light-skinned mestiza of the Caribbean,
a child of many diaspora, born into this continent at a crossroads.
I am a U.S. Puerto Rican Jew,
a product of the ghettos of a New York I have never known.
An immigrant and the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants.
I speak English with passion: it’s the tongue of my consciousness,
a flashing knife blade of crystal, my tool, my craft.
I am Caribeña, island grown. Spanish is in my flesh,
Ripples from my tongue, lodge in my hips:
the language of garlic and mangoes,
the singing of poetry, the flying gestures of my hands.
I am of Latinoamerica, rooted in the history of my continent:
I speak from that body.
I am not African.
Africa is in me, but I cannot return.
I am not taína.
Taíno is in me, but there is no way back.
I am not European.
Europe lives in me, but I have no home there.
I am new. History made me. My first language was spanglish.
I was born at the crossroads
and I am whole.
*Carabena – Caribbean woman
*Taino – Tainos were the Indian tribe indigenous to Puerto Rico
1. What does it mean to be a child of the Americas?
2. Who might the audience be for this particular piece?
3. Do you see any links between Morales’ poem and The Namesake?
The Namesake
As a way to connect some of the themes in the poem to the novel, parts of the novel can be composed as a
“found poem” by changing the layout on the page but none of the text. The following is a found poem from p.93
of The Namesake.
Ode to a teenage Gogol
Gogol does not
Date anyone in high school. He suffers
Quiet crushes,
Which he admits to no one
On this girl
Or that girl with whom
He is already friends.
He does not attend dances
Or parties.
He and his group of friends,
Prefer to listen to
Dylan
And Clapton
And the Who,
And read Nietzche in their spare time.
His parents do not
Find it strange that their son doesn’t date,
Does not rent a tuxedo
For his junior prom.
They see no reason to encourage Gogol,
Certainly not at his age.
Instead they urge him
To join the math team and maintain
His A average.
His father presses him
To pursue engineering,
Perhaps at MIT.
Assured by his
Grades and his apparent
Indifference to girls
His parents don’t suspect Gogol
Of being,
In his own fumbling way,
And American
Teenager.
How does this “poem” compare with the Morales poem on the previous page? What do they share?