Nikolai Bukharin

when he discovers the birthday present his father gave him when he turned fourteen. At that age Gogol was too engrossed in hating his name to have ever paid any attention to the book or what it contained within. Upon opening The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol,…

In a crowded room, do you feel alone? In the book The Namesake by the author Jhumpa Lahiri, the main character Gogol Ganguli internally struggles to accept himself. Instead, he searches for a new identity. With his parents, he leaves India along with his culture, emigrating to the United States.The author, Jhumpa Lahiri, is very alike in comparison to Gogol Ganguli. They both have immigrated to the United States from India, and have a pet name and a preferred nick name. Gogol’s father, Ashoke,…

Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli moved to a small town in America shortly after they became husband and wife. Not only was the move a culture shock to Ashima but the idea of assimilating into the American culture was about as foreign as she was. Throughout her novel Lahiri paints the picture of what it was like for a Bengali foreigner to try and hold onto their culture in America. Along with trying to raise a Bengali family surrounded by ever pressing American influence. In the novel The Namesake by…

Few films capture the essence of being an outsider in a foreign nation, namely and Indian in the United States of America, and one of these films happen to be Mira Nair’s The Namesake. Based on the titular book by Jhumpa Lahiri, the story focuses on the difficulties of a Bengali family after migrating to America, and the conflicts their son faces throughout his life after receiving an uncommon name, Gogol, at birth. Despite having such a simple premise, The Namesake shows the significance a name…

‘On the one hand, man is a body. On the other hand, man has a body. That is, man experiences himself as an entity that is not identical with his body, but that, on the contrary, has a body at its disposal' (Berger and Luckmann). With reference to TWO works studied on this course, discuss the body as the source of identity, and also as a source of confusion about identity. Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' and Gogol's 'The Nose' are both novellas that centre on a bodily catastrophe. The protagonists'…

The first four chapters start off with the new life that Ashima is experiencing after she moved to the United States with her husband. Her first child, Gogol, was born in America. The name “Gogol”, a Russian writer’s last name, is given by Gogol’s father, Ashoke because he thinks he has a very special bond with that Russian novelist’s book. Ashima met Ashoke when she was 19 in Calcutta, and she is the most conservative member of her family. Ashima’s marriage was determined by her parents…

Ajima, also known as “The honorable potter’s wife, has always been very compassionate to Tree-ear since the beginning. She nourished Tree-ear at the midday meal along with her husband. In addition, she provided him with clothing. Ajima used to be known as, “The honorable potter’s wife”. More frequently, she is known as Ajima. On page 91 in A Single Shard, it says “The second is that from now on, you will call me Ajima”. Ajima was closed off at the beginning. She was mainly in the home, or…

Love, Hate, and Understanding Often considered both a universal language and a source of the greatest happiness, true love can be incredibly elusive to those that do not understand it. With each relationship that a person engages in, they begin to understand their self worth and identity. The Namesake, written by Jhumpa Lahiri, accounts the life of an Indian boy from his teens to middle age and how he handles these feelings of “love”. Gogol Ganguli, firstborn of a recently immigrated family,…

The Namesake is another immigration story, which was adapted a book titled the same name. It is about a middle class immigrant Asian Indian family living in New York. Although the movie tells the story of an Indian family’s struggle in the US, essentially their adjustment problems could be true for all the immigrant families regardless of ethnicity. For example, yearning, adaptation process of the new culture while protecting your own culture and generation gap might be universal fact for all…

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake depicts the development of a man named Nikhil Ganguli, commonly referred to as Gogol. Written in 2003, The Namesake illustrates the toils and internal journey many children of immigrants face in contemporary times. Seeing as they experience a clash between their ethnic culture and American culture, first generation children must seek a balance between the two in order to understand their identity, which is evident in Gogol’s experience. Through three phases of…