The Namesake
Gogol is a strange name, but that strangeness does not define who he is. “The Namesake” is about a boy who has foreign parents and a peculiar name, but he learns that what he is called is not who he is as a person and that it is okay that his name is out of the ordinary. In “The Namesake,” Jhumpa Lahiri establishes the theme that it is okay to be different through family traditions, relationships with others, and experiences.
Gogol and his family have some traditions that explain the peculiarity of his name. This can first be seen when he gets told that he was named after a Russian author. His family has said that since the famous author’s name is known around the world, his name will live on forever. Similarly, his last name, Ganguli is also
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One idea that supports this is when Gogol travels to Calcutta with his family. This experience of seeing where his family comes from gives him a sense of belonging. He sees that his name is not so strange there and that others have odd names like his. To go along with this, Gogol has the experience of going on a field trip to a cemetery. There he finds people with odd names just like his. Furthermore, some of the parents on the field trip assist Gogol in this experience. One adult tells him that someone does not see the names he has encountered everyday. This helps him to realize that other people recognize that although his name is strange, it does not make it bad. Gogol, although a strange name, is not the weirdest that he has seen on this trip. The sense of not belonging that he feels based on his name alone, gives him a “home,” per say, among the other odd names. All of these examples help Gogol realize that names, just like people, will perish.
With all of this in mind, Jhumpa Lahiri establishes the theme that it is okay to be different through family traditions, relationships with others, and experiences in “The Namesake.” This establishes the theme because Gogol realizes that his name makes him different, but that is not a bad thing. In the end, one is their own individual and who they are is not defined by irrelevant things such as outer appearances or their
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