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In A Well-Developed Paragraph. Discuss How

The passage discusses the different attitudes of the characters Ashima, Ashoke, and Gogol towards their Bengali culture in America. Ashima struggles to adapt and maintains their cultural traditions. Ashoke more easily adopts American customs. Gogol resents being made to participate in Bengali classes and feels pressured to embrace a culture he does not fully identify with, leading him to distance himself from his parents' culture. The characters have differing views on maintaining their cultural identity in a new country.

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30 views1 page

In A Well-Developed Paragraph. Discuss How

The passage discusses the different attitudes of the characters Ashima, Ashoke, and Gogol towards their Bengali culture in America. Ashima struggles to adapt and maintains their cultural traditions. Ashoke more easily adopts American customs. Gogol resents being made to participate in Bengali classes and feels pressured to embrace a culture he does not fully identify with, leading him to distance himself from his parents' culture. The characters have differing views on maintaining their cultural identity in a new country.

Uploaded by

Ciara Casey
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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In a well-developed paragraph, discuss how each of these characters´ attitudes and prejudices

influence the others, and explain which view you find most sympathetic or understandable.

Ashima, who is one of the main characters, feels out of place since the beggining of the novel.
Not only she misses her homeland, but she also contemplates how different America is to
everything she has seen or even learned back in India. She is always in the state of thinking and
oscillation. As time passes, she starts to adopt certain aspects of the american culture. A clear
example of this could be celebrating christmas, which is something that she would have never
done before, but since her children were very enthusiastic about it, they as a family decided to
give it a try. Ashima wants Gogol and Sonia to take part and celebrate their culture. However,
it´s something difficult to do because they are in a completely different country, so ever since
they were kids, she had to continuosly encourage them to participate and learn about the
Bengali culture.

On the other hand, Ashoke isn´t so attached to the Bengali culture as his wife is. It´s probably
because he feels more comfortable with the american ways of doing things. That´s why he has
no problem in changing a few aspects of his life, since he seems to fit in more in this american
society. For instance, when Gogol and Sonia were little, ´Ashima continues to wear nothing but
saris and sandals from Bata, Ashoke, accustomed to wearing trailor-made pants and shirts all
his life, learns to buy ready-made. ´ This change in clothing might seem meaningless, but in
reality, it shows how Ashoke and Ashima adapted extremely differently to America. In fact, it
took a lot of time for Ashima to finally feel American. This wasn´t Ashoke´s case, who settled
down very quickly in The States.

Moreover, the couple decides to bring up their children by following the Bengali culture, but
they can´t ignore the fact that their kids are growing up in America, not in India. ´For when
Ashima and Ashoke close their eyes it never fails to unsettle them, that their children sound
just like americans, expertly conversing in a language that still at times confounds them, in
accents they are accustomed not to trust´ This quotation explains perfectly the fear that they
felt because it was shocking for them to realize that both Gogol and Sonia sounded more
american than indian. Eventually, they had to accept that their children were growing not only
following their Bengali culture, but also the american. As a result of this, they make sure,
especially Ashima, that both Gogol and Sonia learn about their Bengali heritage.

Furthermore, when Gogol is in the third grade, they send him to Bengali language and culture
lessons every other Saturday. Nevertheless, ´Gogol hates it it because it keeps him from
attending every other session of Saturday-morning drawing class he´s enrolled in´. In this
occasion, Gogol can´t choose what he would really want to do, so he feels that he´s being kept
away from things just because he is Bengali, and he thinks that there´s nothing that he can do
about it. This sort of resentment Gogol starts to develop since he was little, doesn´t go away so
easily. This is why throughout the novel Gogol is always leaning towards the american culture,
something that his parents could never comprehend. It´s not that he hates the Bengali culture,
but all those years of feeling pressured into doing things that he wouldn´t have done, made
him disengage more and more from his parents´ culture. It musn´t be easy for Gogol to grow
up in a conutry where everyone thinks and acts different from his family, which follows a
totally different culture. So, it´s normal for him to want to detach a little bit from the Bengali
culture. However, it´s also comprehensible for Ashima and Ashoke to want their son and
daughter to commemorate the Bengali culture, for example by marrying a Bengali person,
especially since they live in America.

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