Amir’s relationship with his only parental figure, Baba, is somewhat different from Gogol’s. While growing up in Afghanistan, Amir’s life was centered around trying to receive approval and praise from Baba. This was mainly due to the fact that Baba seemed to care more about his servant’s son Hassan than he did Amir. Hassan receiving Baba’s approval angered Amir and only pushed him harder to receive praise from his critical father. It was not until after his father died that Amir learned from a family friend, Rahim Khan, that Baba was only hard on him because of his own mistakes. These mistakes include having an affair with a lower class woman that ended up in Hassan being born. “He loved you both, but he could not love Hassan the way he longed
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The Namesake exclusively focuses on Gogol’s romantic encounters. His two main girlfriends in the course of the novel-Maxine and Moushumi-help expose how caring and loving Gogol is as an individual. This is a side of him that readers are excluded from earlier on in the novel since his biggest conflict was with his name and dealing with his Bengali heritage. In both relationships, Gogol loves his girlfriends unconditionally and puts much effort into making the relationships work. With Maxine, he would put work aside in order to go on vacations with her and her family while with Moushumi, he attempted to spark their marriage again by planning a trip for the two of them to go on. "What was stopping him? A trip together, to a place neither of them has been-maybe that's what he and Moushumi need. He could plan it all himself, select cities they would visit, the hotels. It could be his Christmas gift to her, two airplane tickets tucked into the back of the guide," (Lahiri 272). Despite his efforts though, both of these relationships fell apart. The brutal truth to his failing relationships can be traced to his poor relationship with his family. If he had had a more solid, positive relationship with his family, it is possible he would have been more successful in finding a relationship throughout the course of the novel that would not have
The Namesake exclusively focuses on Gogol’s romantic encounters. His two main girlfriends in the course of the novel-Maxine and Moushumi-help expose how caring and loving Gogol is as an individual. This is a side of him that readers are excluded from earlier on in the novel since his biggest conflict was with his name and dealing with his Bengali heritage. In both relationships, Gogol loves his girlfriends unconditionally and puts much effort into making the relationships work. With Maxine, he would put work aside in order to go on vacations with her and her family while with Moushumi, he attempted to spark their marriage again by planning a trip for the two of them to go on. "What was stopping him? A trip together, to a place neither of them has been-maybe that's what he and Moushumi need. He could plan it all himself, select cities they would visit, the hotels. It could be his Christmas gift to her, two airplane tickets tucked into the back of the guide," (Lahiri 272). Despite his efforts though, both of these relationships fell apart. The brutal truth to his failing relationships can be traced to his poor relationship with his family. If he had had a more solid, positive relationship with his family, it is possible he would have been more successful in finding a relationship throughout the course of the novel that would not have