Literary Analysis Essay on Namesake

Introduction

The novel "Namesake" embarks in the United States setting, in Cambridge. Ashima Ganguli, together with her husband, are expecting a child; the couple is thought to have met in Calcutta where they got married according to the plans of their parents. Ashoke happens to be a graduate student in electrical engineering from MIT. Despite that Ashima was hesitant to move to a foreign country with the money which she had known for a short period, she accepts to move to the United States so as not to offend her family. In the United States, she is blessed with a baby boy in Cambridge in the hospital. From Ashoka's incident where he nearly died from a train accident while in India, decides to name her baby boy Gogol, after the Russian author by the name Nikolai Gogol. Therefore, the couple agrees to register the baby's name to be Gogol. According to Ashoke, Gogol was his beloved author since Ashoke loved reading Gogol's novels, even when he got an accident with the train was reading Gogol's book. Hence it is through the book's page that Ashoke was recognized and rescued from the wreckage of the train by the police. For instance, the life of Ashima in the United States, which is her new environment, makes her face language challenges. Thus from Namesake's novel, and in writing this paper, we are going to explore how language affects an individual more so when one moves to another country where people speak another word, which is the second language of an individual.

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Change and Its Dependence on Stability

Lahiri, on his book namesake, tries track trends of the activities that happen to the Ganguli family. However, she does not seem to argue in the fact that life is wholly dynamic. Instead, it tries to reflect a series of events, meals; parties band the social activities that take place throughout the stay of Ashima, Ashoke and Gogol's life in the United States of America. Ashima experiences language difficulties when she moves to the United States as she is not able to get other words well. This can be identified when Ashoke is admitted to the hospital. When the nurse examines her saying "baby's head is in the proper position, has already begun its descent," when she is told that she is in early labour, "three centimetres dilated." She faces difficulties in understanding what it meant as she is curious to know about it. "What does it mean, dilated?" as the doctor (Ashley) holds his two fingers and starts to explain to her. It is through change. Furthermore, language change that Ashima comes to learn that language has different perspectives in different areas on the way it is expressed and the concept behind it.

On the other hand, Ashoke, who got a fatal train accident that nearly killed him in India, chooses to leave the country to America. As he returns to Calcutta, he finds her bride Ashima who they are happily married. Their lives are both affected by the change as their early move to Cambridge is faced with many issues, and Ashima's stay in Cambridge starts to feel that it is her home since she has learned the language very well and has trained herself to be a real American. She comes to realize that she has made a new life and a new home for herself, although her sense and desire for love and contentment never disappears.

The Universality of "Foreignness"

The novel Namesake appears like the novel is about Bengali-American involvement. Ashima's story with Ashoke, tend to feel out of place when they move to Cambridge. Ashima feels again alienated when the family moves to the outskirts of Boston, as she had started to be familiar with the family in Cambridge's surroundings. However, to the last part of the story, Lahiri's explanations and reasons are quite clear. It is not the Bengali's experience, but it is a sense of "outsider-ness" when they came to America. Hence the United States tends to be the "outside country" with different communities and languages, the feeling of the effect of the languages. According to Gogol, he happens to fall in distinctive relationships with Maxine; he senses that the Ratliff family is very diverse from his own as he does not know more about her city style. A case that makes Gogol treasure it relish it more so when he remembers the time they spend their time in the woods of the New Hampshire. However, to Moushumi, who is Gogol's friend and happens that they share many things in common with the many cultural links. Moushumi is quite different since he wants a different life that does not ultimately involve Gogol despite their heritage of Bengali American. Moushumi distances himself from Gogol since he belongs to a different aspect of the relationship

The Formation of Identity

According to Clark, Aisha, who resides in Banda Aceh, in Indonesia, is going through hard times in trying to find and deciding on which cloth to wear for a date. Aisha faces the difficulties in choosing the right attire just because of the issues with her society where she comes from and its perceptions towards a woman's look, "..Judges a woman on what she wears." In a similar case, Leila Ahmed, in reinventing the veil her view on what to wear, is deliberated on the possible changes that will be experienced over sometime concerning what women should wear as she says that "Living religions are by definition dynamic." From the current world, this statement seems right since the past clothing is bygone, and rules that were upon the dress are never taken seriously. Different languages use different ways in expressing thoughts; according to the scholars, find no difference in the style of people as all our utterances are fragmented as they take just a small number of information that is present. For instance, Ashoka's statement "in a day or two you'll be half the size" as they are helping to nurse Ashoke in the hospital during labour pains, Ashima's statement does not mean what he said it has a different meaning to him. He implies that Ashoke will be well in one or two days since she would have delivered as per the doctor's remarks that she had 24 hours. Therefore the way Ashima expresses her statement displays that she is not a native English speaker hence the use of metaphors to symbolize specific hidden meaning. Thus there is no significant difference in thinking and the way he uses his words.

Conclusion

From the Namesake's novel, we can find that there are various effects of change and circumstances that one faces more so when changing from one life to the other. For instance, Ashima faces many challenges when she moves to the United States of America, a foreign country with different communities and languages, which gives her a headache in adapting. The starting of a new life by Ashoke after a train accident and when she marries Ashima gives him a challenge in accepting a new life. Namesake's story, which seems to revolve around Bengali, explains how language and change of environment can affect one towards conceptualizing things. Therefore the environment through which a person comes from will shape one's understanding of style.