Bhaskar Bhushan

PhD Research Scholar, IGNOU, New Delhi, India

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Abstract:

This paper explores Jhumpa Lahiri's novel "The Namesake" as a poignant portrayal of an identity fracture of its central character who isn't able to assimilate the differences between upbringing given to him by his own family and the mores and values practised and advocated in America and the society and its people as seen in America in comparison to the people in his parents' place of birth which is still the dominant more of his house and parents. The narrative is layered and laced with references that evoke the feeling of a sense of immediate loss of surroundings, when it delves into the complexities of immigrant experiences and the challenges faced by individuals caught between the cusp of two cultures, as the protagonist’s name itself becomes a point of attention for the other members of that society at various stages of his life, since it is atypical of someone to name their son Gogol in America, on the name of his favourite author Gogol who was a famous Russian writer. Thus, novel "The Namesake" also examines the generational gap between Gogol and his parents as Lahiri deftly portrays the clashes between traditional Indian values and the desire for independence and assimilation felt by Gogol with the American Society and other second-generation immigrants as a separate class unto themselves because of their upbringing in an American society with different family values and structures of individual autonomy, all the while trying to accommodate and respect their parents’ style of nurturing who were born and brought up in a very different cultural milieu. These conflicts underscore the challenges faced by the individuals torn between honouring their native heritage and embracing their adopted culture.

Therefore, this research paper aims to highlight such experiences of existence in the novel by highlighting the dichotomies of living and being in an environment alien to one’s own natural accord by looking into the root causes of such fractures through the personal and interpersonal examination of the motives of the characters of the novel. Throughout the novel, Lahiri captures the nuanced emotional landscapes of her characters, revealing the intricate layers of identity formation and hints at the fissures and fractures between the self and the other at the same time.

Keywords: Self, The Other, Identity, Individuality, Alienation, Fragmentation, Diaspora, Autonomy.

People understand the world in terms of comparisons and relations and the binary of self and other is perhaps one of the most basic compartmentalisations that help us understand how a human mind works and acts. The theories that relate to the inner recesses of human consciousness and identity establish beyond corroboration that the existence of an Other-which is "a not-self", resides within every human self. In other words, it is the one that sees us, knows the real us, but it doesn't control the body or mind itself because it is always a response to a certain trigger or discomfort in perpetuity. This Other is separate from the modes and methods of action, behavioural patterns related to the self in the sense that it is an extrapolation of all that we can't be, can never be or even yearn to be. Such a concept of the self/other is originally attributed to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel which he wrote in his book "Phenomenology of Spirit" published in 1807 in German and 1910 in English. This paper revolves around that zone of discussion as the novel is a work of diasporic expression highlighting the cultural alienations that bring in certain emotions and subsequent acculturations arising out of it and its being, which makes Gogol uncomfortable outside his home, as he feels that he is in his house which operates differently than the other houses and also his parents are different than others in their body language and proxemics. These are people who aren't living in their native places for economic or other political or social reasons as they are migrants who have come to America for completing their own desires and achieving what they aim; Ashoke is a research student who is married off to Ashima who is an educated woman but nonetheless has no aspirations of her own except being content with the traditionally ascribed role of a housewife. While this creates a dry and detached sense of aloofness in their lives as they are away from their birthplace, but they find ways to create a world where they are able to stay connected with their culture and cater to the broader sensibilities of the places. This creates a sense of adjustment within them because they aren't in their natural environment and there's a sense of implicitness or an indifferent passiveness in their identity as human beings, divided internally and externally into becoming someone, who is at a flux, trying to understand his own existential contradictions of like and dislikes, getting acculturated, learn, exist and be, while reminiscing about an another topography, all the while, not being able to completely associate with the place that you are living in and missing where you were born in. Such a milieu and a setting where the subconscious is confronted with two distinct models, we see a struggle for belongingness. "Belongingness" as a construct is the core of such fissures, as it is a journey of realising one's identity which is equally indefatigable to explain because the point of divide may come from any factor- cultural, economic, social, filial, political, ideological, environmental, religious or otherwise which could give rise to such narratives. Here, the narrative is constructed through a diasporic lens, as it begins with Gogol's birth and the struggles, his parents face in reconciling their traditional Indian roots with the realities of a relatively isolated and private American life, as the name of the protagonist Gogol is a symbolic embodiment of his fragmented identity, as it reflects his parents' desire to bridge their cultural heritage with their newfound surroundings along with their own ideas of existential issues. Broadly within these concerns, the story follows the life of Gogol Ganguli, the son of Indian immigrant couple-Ashoke and Ashima in the United States, as he grapples with his own unique identity and the sense of displacement it entails. Through Gogol's journey, Lahiri highlights the profound impact of cultural assimilation, generational gaps, and the search for self-acceptance by showcasing the various fractures of culture that an individual has to overcome before internalizing the idea of a seamless identity, perfectly in sync with his place and times and what all one undergoes and tries out in order “to belong”.

Gogol's relationships, particularly with his romantic partners, further illuminate his struggles to reconcile his conflicting ideas. The self, other develops and triangulates into self, other and the other-self as a consequence of all such struggles-big or small, visible or invisible. However, diaspora literature is a discourse fed by the narratives of people who chose, in their own consciousness, by exercising their agency to go live or settle someplace else, whatever may be the reason.

That's why the story begins with Ashima Ganguli in Massachusetts, Cambridge in 1968, struggling to make Jhaal Mudhi (Spicy krispies with peanuts etc.), who lives with her husband Ashoke Ganguli, a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering at MIT and later a Prof. and their son's Gogol Ganguli's struggle with his own identity. He grows up hating or disliking his name without understanding the true significance of his name and ends up defining himself under a different name-Nikhil- a different self or the other-self.

Gogol is named after Ashoke's favourite Russian writer Nikolai Gogol whose book he was reading during his train accident and whose torn pages ended up saving Ashoke's life. Though the name was originally intended as a pet name, it sticks on for too long owing to the mail displacement but later Gogol himself discards this name in favour of Nikhil while deciding to keep it earlier when he was put in the kindergarten. This apparent dichotomy of first keeping the name and then the abject rejection of it, hints at the duality of identity-of self and the other in order to belong or command agency, he first accepts the parental authority and rejects it later because he thinks that he is his own self and has an autonomy to take his own decisions. But nothing changes, as the identity is not only the verbal or the spoken word, but all the moments and its emotional cumulative that goes into its significance, hence, he is never at ease with his changed name. The story is this sweet bitter tale of seeking self-acceptance and negation outside, without understanding that the idea of identity as not some concrete construct but a psychological or social phenomenon which goes well beyond individuality.

While Ashoke is reserved and sticks to his own Bengali traditions without being too expressive about it, he sees America as the land of knowledge and opportunity. On the other hand, Ashima being a conventional housewife, misses her homeland and views the life and society in America as cold and too individualistic. She is conservative about her culture, as she thinks that it is important for her son to learn Bengali and so she sends him to classes every Sunday, making him remember Tagore's poetry or the names of deities adorning the Shakti in order to maintain her convictions.

For their kids, Gogol and Sonali who is known as Sonia because of the issues with Gogol's name, India seems overseas as they are more at ease with their place of birth while feeling quizzed, overwhelmed when they visit India leading to a very accurate portrayal of a resistance towards a unified identity-Them living in a hotel and paying by credit card during their Agra stay is such an example while wanting to go back as they feel homesick. So, such a fractured identity where the self contains a highly independent Other which later culminates into the quest of finding his own space by discovering or creating or even reinstating a different name, is an effort to find home in the USA, within a society very dissimilar to India as an effort to unite their fractured self, after the damage has been done, with the question being who is to be blamed for all this?

This is initially the case with Ashima too, who thinks that childbirth is a very auspicious moment, so she is of the opinion that Indian women go back to their mother's house so the child is born in the presence of their family members at their maternal home while in the USA, a child is born among strangers in a hospital. In such instances of identity conflict and such vastly different cultures of meanings and actions, the creation of identity works along the lines of association and ascription, and thus, requires a lot of adjustment on the individual front as to encapsulate a multicultural milieu within a single subconscious, thereby requiring a personality which is open to a diversity of experiences. Finding a sense of similitude between the real self and the world outside requires an internalization and compartmentalization of any such subsequent differences. Though, I am of the opinion that this is a necessary trope in the making of any story that concerns diaspora literature to extol and exert any value, this space of questioning and the process of either rejecting, accepting or subsequent negation of such a negotiating space is the area of contention here. Evident are the symbols in Ashima's decisions to allow the children to celebrate Christmas, cooking roasted turkey for thanksgiving and American food once a week for both her children and this does put the seeds of doubts in Gogol's head who appreciates Maxine for her "gift of accepting her life, as she has never wished she were anyone other than herself".

Again, to provide a context to this space in terms of cultural flux and incidents which create the space of confusion aren't only encountered by Gogol but by Ashima before him. This must have put her in either in a state of conservative status quo that's why she ends up making Gogol live a life which has no basis outside his family-as a living pattern or way. Gogol was all alone in this part of his life with no reciprocity available and neither any recognition of as well. We have to remember that a child is the father of man, and this holds truth here too. Also, the first step to the identity in both the societies have a separate basis, as in India, where Annaprashan and Namkaran have different optics in terms of secular events rather than the Christian baptism or feeding which are more region oriented. Hence, to feel flabbergasted at the margins due to one's inability is natural but a lot is added when the parents are also slowly finding their way out, but during this process of reconciliation and internalization, a lot of the emotional contradictions come in, which later add fuel to the fire. Such is the case with Gogol.

Anyways, such a struggle is very natural and inherently humane because humans are impressionistic and individualistic, and societies seek conformity. On those lines, the American society has its own ideas of similitude and conformity to the American life and dream that revolve around patriotism and self-serving liberalism and an institutional disdain for anything that's against their ideologically professed idea of the "land of the free and the opportune" with a history of cold war against Russia (Soviet Union) and McCarthyism, NATO skirmishes being part of their history and policy. All these events force me to see the name Gogol in a different light and the title of the book being the idea of it, the name does symbolize and signify an idea of the namesake, because the Americans do share a general disdain for the Other-such as this one specifically and are openly ignorant of other ideas or culture, while being and living in the false awe of their own world and worldviews. The strange and foreign name 'Gogol' is strange for the whole society and for the protagonist himself but for Ashoke and Ashima, who were Bengalis, this was not anything strange as Bengal had a Marxist Russian influence and traditionally, Bengali are, "living with a pet name and a good name" but in America, a society very different from that of Bengal-where such distinctions don't exist, surely that was emblematic of the greatest of confusions of all. Besides, the mortuary visit and the reactions from both the sides-the Americans and Ashima puts Gogol in a quixotic fix because he, since then, lives with his love for design and architecture while feeling the gauges of what Ashima calls a "past time". So, he takes the legal recourse to get his name changed through a legal petition which highlights the positive normative power of Law as an institution to effect such a superficial change or an important one, but not an organic or an internal one from within when it comes to the idea of acceptance and hybridity. A name change can't change you from outside, without the change being affected from inside or within.

All this travail and confusion is because of the perceived displacement and the inability to achieve a cultural hybridity (a third space of other-self) as all the efforts towards assimilation of the culture through a mutual adaptation of the dominant social norms, while resisting the native idea of "a namesake" is reflective of either a self which creates a misperceived social disenfranchisement or maybe a real one. This leads to a personal alienation from everything and everyone in general, to an extent of becoming a subaltern plagued by the "collective trauma banishment" like the main protagonist Gogol himself or like Ashima-who like her name, becomes appreciative and more accommodative to her life in America and increasingly surer of her identity as time passes, as she becomes a librarian and has her own friends later. The novel shows the struggle of Gogol but the causal closure is achieved by Ashima and I see both of them interconnectedly.

Thus, the novel namesake is a narrative of impending or impeding fractures between the self and the other which either results in the creation of other-self (self-behaving as other) as a fragmented self-image of oneself or is an acceptance of the relative new space by rejecting the real-self or creating a hybrid space of one's own. In such scenarios, everyone changes, but so does someone who lives in the place they were born at. For me, time is of the essence and is the essence too.

References:

Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Flamingo, 2003.

Smith, B.; Smith, D. W., eds., The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, Cambridge University Press, pp. 301–2,1995.

Darder, Antonia. Decolonizing Interpretive Research: A Subaltern Methodology for Social Change, Routledge, London/New York, 2019.

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Habitations of Modernity: Essays in the wake of Subaltern Studies. University of Chicago Press, 2002.