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Summary Of The Namesake

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With the advent of globalization and ever-increasing acceleration in technical front the world has shrunk into a global village with a plenty of opportunities to offer, giving rise to rapid immigration to various countries around the globe especially the most coveted American soil or ‘The third world’. The geographical boundaries are transcended and the imaginary division of the East and the West are diluted that these divisions are slowly erased and the gaps are bridged to bring a sort of homogeneity. Although these divisions have reduced in the physical sense, mentally it has aroused traumatic experiences in the lives of the immigrants who are caught between the two worlds of the orient, the East to which they belong and the occident, the …show more content…

Jhumpa explores and interprets the nuances in her stories since she herself is a second-generation immigrant of Bengali origin; in a way ‘The Namesake’ is her autobiographical sketch of the character, Gogol who frantically searches for his identity throughout the story. This paper aims at highlighting the characteristics replete in these stories related to the orient which also means the land of the rising and the occident denoting the land of the setting sun …show more content…

The former one is more of the occident since the portraiture of the character, Twinkle born and brought up in America takes to that culture unlike her husband Sanjeev who is a first-generation immigrant from Calcutta. His breeding is that of the east, hence he expects his wife to follow that culture but to his chagrin she behaves otherwise. Sanjeev finds her fascinated by a collection of ‘Christian paraphernalia ‘which she displayed on the mantel shelf, a true representation of the occident. In spite Sanjeev reiterating that “We’re not Christians”, she is hellbent on having her way. Even her name represented the west as against her original name, Tanima. Sanjeev finds it difficult to accept her childish behaviour but he is left with no choice than accepting her. He patiently anticipates a change in her for the better when he carries ‘a solid silver bust of Christ’ to place on the mantle as part of the menagerie, in the

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