Examples Of Identity In The Namesake By Jhumpa Lahiri

In the novel The Namesake, author Jhumpa Lahiri describes the Ganguli family’s life transition from Calcutta, India to America. Ashima Ganguli constantly tries to adapt to American culture, while still holding onto her Indian past. Ashima and Ashoke’s son, Gogol, struggles with his identity and various relationships as he grows up through school and his career. Though Author Lahiri reveals how a person creates new identities when building relationships with some people in their life, it is often very difficult to escape their original identity because people are drawn to the values and experiences by which they are raised.
Gogol’s repeatedly failed relationships reveal how he can’t change his passive identity to be compatible with others,

Throughout her marriage to Gogol, Moushumi constantly holds onto her old life with Graham. While living with her, Gogol constantly “finds remnants of her life before he’d appeared in it, her life with Graham” (229). By keeping these “remnants” it shows that Moushumi feels attached to her past and doesn’t want to change her entire identity to be with Gogol. It also exhibits how Moushumi is unwilling to forget about Graham. Another example is how Moushumi reads the book inscribed by Dimitri and “puts it away and opens up something else” (262) when Gogol joins her in bed. This is representative of Moushumi’s multiple identities, one with Gogol and a different one with Dimitri. Her rebellious nature is displayed by cheating on Gogol with Dimitri, revealing how she can’t entirely change her identity to be with Gogol. Moushumi’s false sense commitment towards Gogol shows how her identity is not truly changed because she is never completely focused on her current relationship with Gogol, and instead focuses on her past and current relationships with Graham and