The Namesake Quote 1 He remembers the page crumpled tightly in his fingers, the sudden shock of the lantern’s glare in his eyes. Both Ashima and Ashoke are lovers of literature, Ashima of English poets, Ashoke of Russian authors, especially Gogol. Instead, Lahiri carefully orchestrates a sequence of recurring activities, parties, meals, and social events throughout Ashima, Ashoke, and Gogol’s life. Gogol (Nikhil) Ganguli: Character Analysis. Gogol realizes that it is one thing to change one’s name officially, but another thing to become a different person. Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. Gogol is the center of the novel, and it is his journey from childhood into young adulthood that the narrator tracks most closely. Ashoke recalls the most violent, and jarring, moment of his young life: October 20, 1961, a train ride from Calcutta to Jamshedpur, where his grandfather lived. The two travel by cab to the hospital, where Ashima experiences stronger contractions, and Ashoke waits in the hall. First, his name. Food will go on to serve as a central, unifying element in the parties and celebrations hosted in the Bengali communities of the greater Boston area throughout the novel’s timeline. See a complete list of the characters in He feels it is not his own, and it is not until college, after he has legally changed it to Nikhil, that his father tells him the story that lies behind it. Lahiri tracks, through The Namesake, the changes that occur to the Ganguli family. SparkNotes is brought to you by Barnes & Noble. At first, it appears that The Namesake is a novel “about” the Bengali-American experience. Ashoke’s rehabilitation from his injuries takes months, and during that time he resolves to follow the deceased Ghosh’s advice and study abroad. Suddenly, the train derails, killing Ghosh and dozens of others. Gogol realizes that it is one thing to change one’s name officially, but another thing to become a different person. Meanwhile, Ashoke sits outside, in the hall, reading an old newspaper, thinking of Ashima’s early pregnancy, and of his own childhood and education in India. Gogol tries on different identities at different stages of his life: in college, with Ruth, after college, with Maxine, and in his marriage to Moushumi. It is not that Bengalis experience a feeling of “outsider-ness” when they come to America. This causes Gogol to enjoy it, to cherish it, especially the time they spend in the woods of New Hampshire. SparkNotes is brought to you by Barnes & Noble. Ashoke reads as his cabin-mates fall asleep. It is that America is a country of “being outside,” of different groups and communities, some overlapping, others quite removed from one another. Millions of books are just a click away on BN.com and through our FREE NOOK reading apps. And the train-ride to Ashoke’s grandfather’s house serves as the dominant traumatic event of Ashoke’s young life, which spurs his resolve to leave India, to see the world, to create his own life separate from the family networks of his native Calcutta. But Lahiri’s narrator represents both Ashima and Ashoke’s interior monologues, and seems to imply that, although their marriage is traditional, Ashoke does not control Ashima, and Ashima’s responsibilities and skills complement her husband’s. SparkNotes is brought to you by Barnes & Noble. But Ashoke survives, and is identified by rescuers by the fluttering page of his Gogol volume, which Ashoke drops when the rescuers are nearby. Of course, Ashima and Ashoke feel out of place when they move to Cambridge. As the chapter ends, Ashoke realizes he has had three lives: one in India before the crash, one of recuperation, and a third in the US, as a student living and working in English. Gogol tries on different identities at different stages of his life: in college, with Ruth, after college, with Maxine, and in his marriage to Moushumi. The first chapter of The Namesake introduces many of the themes that will go on to shape the narrative: immigration, naming, literature, train travel, and re-birth. ... Isaac Newton Biography Study Guide René Descartes Edmund Halley Robert Hooke Gottfried von Leibniz Hannah Newton Popular pages: Isaac Newton Take a Study Break Be Book-Smarter. In a sense, her own desires, for love and fulfillment and companionship, never change. With Maxine, Gogol feels that the Ratliff family is fundamentally different from his own, that he does not understand their “city” lifestyle. But Ashima begins to feel, over the course of many years, that Cambridge is her home. Here's where you'll find analysis about the book as a whole. She begins to feel contractions, and calls out to her husband in the next room, Ashoke, an electrical-engineering PhD student at MIT. Ashima Ganguli, The Namesake is a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri that was first published in 2003. He feels it is not his own, and it is not until college, after he has legally changed it to Nikhil, that his father tells him the story that lies behind it. Ashoke’s life is uprooted entirely after the train-wreck in India, which nearly kills him. He decides, afterward, to leave for the United States, and when he returns to Calcutta to find a bride, he marries Ashima. She muses that the clock ticks in “American seconds.”. Ashima thinks on how she has gotten to know her new husband during the intervening months in freezing Cambridge, where she has cooked for him, washed his clothes, and learned his habits. In fact, it is through change that characters learn who they are, and what parts of themselves remain constant. But the context, and the location, in which these desires are fulfilled does. Gogol (Nikhil) Ganguli: Character Analysis. Ghosh encourages Ashoke to travel abroad himself, and gives Ashoke his address in India, in case Ashoke ever wants to visit. Ashima was a student and English tutor in India, with a special interest in the poets William Wordsworth and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Gogol grows up perplexed by his pet name. Ashima Ganguli, a recent immigrant to the United States from Calcutta, India, is making a Rice Krispie and peanut snack, similar to that of Calcutta’s street-food vendors. Ashima cooks and cleans for Ashoke, and manages the home when he is at work, in keeping with Bengali custom. But Moushumi longs for a foreign life that does not, ultimately, include Gogol. But she does not do so to argue that life is entirely change. And Ashima feels again out of place when the family relocates to the suburbs of Boston, just as Ashima was becoming accustomed to her Cambridge neighborhood. This theme is born out in Gogol’s different romantic relationships. Ashoke is accepted on scholarship to an engineering doctoral program at MIT, in Cambridge. Ashima thinks, as she waits to deliver her baby, of her new life in the United States. Ashoke Ganguli, But, by the end of the novel, it becomes clear that Lahiri’s point is much larger. Find the quotes you need to support your essay, or refresh your memory of the book by reading these key quotes. The Namesake quizzes about important details and events in every section of the book. Although Ashima occasionally longs for life in Calcutta, she realizes she has made a new life, a new home for herself and her family in the United States.

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