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The document discusses Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake and the themes of cultural identity and the immigrant experience. It summarizes that Ashima, an Indian immigrant to the US, struggles with loneliness and identity issues as she tries to raise her son Gogol in a new culture. Gogol himself later faces an identity crisis as he is torn between his Indian heritage and assimilating to American culture. The document examines how Lahiri portrays the difficulties first-generation immigrants face maintaining their native culture in a new country as well as the challenges their American-born children face balancing multiple cultures.

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45 views11 pages

Indhuppt

The document discusses Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake and the themes of cultural identity and the immigrant experience. It summarizes that Ashima, an Indian immigrant to the US, struggles with loneliness and identity issues as she tries to raise her son Gogol in a new culture. Gogol himself later faces an identity crisis as he is torn between his Indian heritage and assimilating to American culture. The document examines how Lahiri portrays the difficulties first-generation immigrants face maintaining their native culture in a new country as well as the challenges their American-born children face balancing multiple cultures.

Uploaded by

thangapandi1157698
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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IDENTITY CRISIS AND CULTURALS

CONFLICTS IN THE NAMESAKE

K.INDHUMATHI
II MA ENGLISH
AUTHOR INTRODUCTION
• JHUMPA LAHIRI was born in london
1967,was raised in Rhode Island.
• She became recognized as a representative of
Asian Indian immigrants.
• Her work depict the life style of asian indian
families living in America and draw attention
to the issue of incomplete identity.
• Her Theme based on the immigrant people
experience,identites and displacement,and ties
and clashes between the generations.
• Her works can easily feel a sense of living in
exile, loss of communication, the sense of
belonging to nowhere, the inability to feel
accepted,complicated social status, and
difficulties and different experiences which
first and second generations of Indian
immigrants.
SOCIAL CUSTOMS AND PRACTICES IN THE NAMESAKE

• The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, is a story of culture, race,


and inheritance and how these factors mold our attitudes and
direct our lives in an ever-changing society.
• Social customs is displayed through how unique their
character is through qualities such as habits, desires, or values.
• Culture imposes customs which ultimately manifest through a
person's defining sense of identity.
• This similarity between culture suggests that a conflict tied
directly to one's culture, will ultimately affect one's sense of
self.
• The story shows how culture and inheritance are
influencing people’s identity in society.
• The novel, through the Ganguli family, shows how
the experience of being an immigrant differs from one
generation to another.
• Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli, are from India live the
American dream while their children are American
born.
• As a result, Gogol, their son, struggles to find his
identity divided between his Indian heritage and his
desire to live an independent life in the American
style.
IDENTITY CRISIS IN
THE NAMESAKE
• The identity crisis is that which Ashima underwent of severe
mental phrenic trauma and she called this a period of
confusion.
• Her sense of identity also becomes insecure, and she struggled
a lot to make herself to feel as an American, emotional
dislocations and heavy heart she tries to settle in their home in
a new land.
• She compares the American culture with Indian culture, which
gives dilemma experience and makes her survival more
difficult.
• At one such occasion, Ashima felt that living in foreign land is
like a lifelong pregnancy.
• Ashima, after her marriage leaves India for America as
she feels lonely in the deserted area .
• Her Indian way of life differs from the present one,
Ashoke her husband is busy with his studies. She
becomes pregnant, not a soul to give her suggestions.
She gives birth to Gogol, She could not find any solace
in the society.
• Her son and daughter got adapted to the foreign
society. Ashima feels a sort of constant burden
something more complicated and demanding in her life
after she loses her husband.
• The Diaspora life gives on a new world entire
simultaneously up- rooting their native land bond.
• Ashima affinity towards newcomers was mainly they
hailed from Calcutta.
A Study of Cultural Dissonance
The Namesake
• Cultural conflict has been a constant motif of Indian diasporic
writers and it is presented by Lahiri in the form of Immigrant’s
experience, in an evocative manner.
• Cultural dissonance has been one of the recurrent themes of
Lahiri’s oeuvre. She primarily deals with the issues of exiles,
displacement, cultural conflict, identity crisis and the the
feeling of nostalgia and alienation of Indian immigrants to
America.
• She portrays the cultural dislocation of her characters in terms
of acculturation of Indian immigrants to American ways of
life.
• The writer examines the cultural dilemmas of her characters in
two ways – firstly, the first generation Indian immigrants find
it difficult to assimilate the cultural practices of the host
culture.
• Ashima is the first generation immigrants, Her emotional
attachment and feeling of nostalgia, haunts her all the time
after coming to America.
• She comes to America with her husband Ashoke, with a view
to lead a happy and prosperous life for the rest of her life.
• After the birth of Gogol, Ashima wishes to return her
homeland in order to bring up her child in the company of the
caring and loving ones.
• Ashima’s constant effort to preserve her home culture in the
new ambience makes her feel more culturally displaced, she
tries to sow the seed of native culture in her children’s mind.
SUMMATION
• Lahiri narrates culture and its importance in immigrant experience
with humanist outlook. While expressing the immigrant experience
in the United States she brings out the merits of native culture and
the mysteries of acquired culture.
• In Lahiri's narratology the Indian immigrants confront an identity
crisis in their love-hate relationships for Indian American cultures.
The home culture is not only a driving force for the immigrants, but
also an elemental force for their biological and spiritual growth.
• The immigrants make their occasional visits to India to revitalize
their cultural identity and in the United States, the characters, from
Bengali origin, desperately endeavour for emancipation from their
dislocation, displacement and disorigntation.
• When Ashima moves to America with Ashoke, it has a very
negative affect on her. She is clearly not happy and misses her
family so says. "I'm saying I don't want to raise Gogol alone in
this country. It's not right. I want to go back".
• This displays her feelings about America and her desire to go
back to India and raise her child there.
• A sudden turn takes place when Gogol's father dies.
• Gogol had an relationship with three young women but finally
he married to Moushumi. She has an affair with someone and
gogol finds out and instantly leaves .
• This shows Gogol's romantic pattern throughout his life. All of
his relationships started great but all of them ended with a
tragedy.
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