Preview

Analysis Of The Namesake By Jhumpa Lahiri

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
457 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis Of The Namesake By Jhumpa Lahiri
In the novel, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, the protagonist, Gogol, faces many challenges due to his ethnicity and regional differences. Lahiri's purpose is to portray Gogol conflicting within himself, on how to act in order to advise the audience how cultural collision will affect people’s lives. The author’s treatment of Gogol having trouble on what to do throughout the novel relates to the overall meaning of the novel showing that people who have different cultures have a difficult time adjusting to their new home.

Colliding cultures do not just happen during movies or novels, people inevitably face this today. Cultural collision occurs when one act from a culture happens to be different from an act to a separate culture. Due to these

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    starts in the year 1968. At this time in history people still thought that anyone of color as…

    • 1039 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Book Report Phi103

    • 1397 Words
    • 4 Pages

    When Cultures Collide, the title of the book is self-explanatory. What happens when two people with different beliefs clashes? Think about this, what happens when and Economic professor tries to teach a nursing class? I’m certain at the end of the class the students will be confused. Unless this professor has a background in both economic and nursing I doubt the students will learn anything from him or her. Same way when two different people come together without knowing the background of each other, they most likely will clash somewhere, like their beliefs.…

    • 1397 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jhumpa Lahiri Culture

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Those that live in America and those that live in India have different lifestyles and traditions, but when you have to balance both, it’s difficult to figure out who you truly are. Gogol grows up throughout the book with a Hindu-Indian family while living in America. He confronts the challenge of assimilating while trying to pursue two cultures. As he gets older, he then tries to find his identity by changing his name from Gogol to Nikhil and starts different relationships. But Gogol then realized that what has held him and his family together has been the Indian culture, which has influenced him from the moment he was born and named. In the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol was influenced greatly by the Indian culture because it motivated…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are millions of cultures all over the world that change the way people are perceived. Culture is a large part of how people view the world and how the world views people of a certain culture. Differences in culture can be viewed in multiple short stories, and excerpts from novels. The authors of “An Indian Father’s Plea”, “Where Worlds Collide”, and “Everyday Use” use culture to show how people can react to others based on their way of life. Culture can create conflict between people and cause differences in how certain groups perceive each other.…

    • 851 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    This paper will examine the differences in culture within the aspect of the film The Princess and the Frog. The cultural aspects of this film will be examined using Hall’s perspective of culture as a screen and Hofstede’s five dimensions. This paper will evaluate both cultural identity and culture bias in the film. It will explain the concept of cultural patterns and show what types of cultural patterns are present in the film. This paper will also illustrate examples of both verbal and nonverbal intercultural communication in the film. It will show how these relate to Hall’s theory of cultural high context or low context societies. The first aspect we will…

    • 1813 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    So what is the cultural conflict? Cultural conflict is a type of conflict that occurs when different cultural values and beliefs clash. It has been used to explain violence and crime. We know that when people from different cultures communicate, misunderstandings can happen.…

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    It can be difficult to see our own culture, because it too familiar, too ubiquitous to recognise. Cultural assumptions are usually hidden and become more apparent when one encounters contrast. When individuals encounter foreigners, or visit other cultures, cultural differences become more apparent. Many have stated that, if it were not for the existence of more than one culture, we would not think of about culture at all! The apparent differences of how human think, feel and act are what make us aware of culture.…

    • 1651 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In our world today there are so many different ways to access diverse and multicultural literature that shows us many examples of culture clash. Culture clash shows when art and other manifestations of humans collide together in literature and movies. Some great examples are “Indian Education’’ from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexis details on the hardship Victor had to go through during his school years, “Hair’’ from the Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcom X and Alex Haley focuses on how it can be hard to accept oneself when society tries to say different, and “Two Kinds’’ from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan tells about a distraught relationship between a mother and daughter over piano lessons. Culture Clash is…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    When two cultures collide in the same area often if not always a conflict occurs. The conflict is that one of the cultures is dominant and the other subordinate, where one holds power over the other. And in which the oppressive culture defines what is legit and lawful. Pratt argues that these factors are only imaginary, and these factors only remove them from the conception of the actual living community. She defines transculturation as "to describe processes whereby members of subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominant of metropolitan culture" (pg. 505), Pratt is also trying to define that it is an error to assume that all people in a community must share the same language, motives and beliefs. These are the beliefs of the culture that is…

    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the novel, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, the character Gogol changes in many different ways. One of the most apparent changes was in his "Indian ness". By "Indian ness" I mean the amount of his parents Bengali ways and traditions that he retained. While growing up he did everything in his power while growing up to stray away from his parents' Bengali ways. Gogol spent most of his life trying to differ from his parents, however in the end he ends up obeying their wishes as to who he marries. As he was growing up Gogol felt only embarrassment and shame because of his background and because his parents did things differently than his other American friends' parents. For example, unlike his American friends, while in college Gogol had to return home every other weekend to accompany his parents to their Bengali friends' parties. Throughout his life he tried to shed his parent's un-American lifestyle but in the end he succumbed to his past and ancestry.…

    • 2414 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Lost Thing Quotes

    • 1061 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Lahiri also goes on to demonstrate how social interaction can lead to one’s compromise of their identity. Gogol is a prime example of this; as a child of migrants, Gogol is confronted by two different cultures and feels he must be one or the other. As Gogol’s relationship with Maxine develops, we see him…

    • 1061 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Where Worlds Collide

    • 433 Words
    • 2 Pages

    People’s cultural view When looking at a different part of the world people think that it is weird. Well that is all culture are different and special. In “Where Worlds Collide”, Frida: a biography, and Two Kinds, the passages show that people’s culture affect the way they view the world and their cultures. In Pico Iyer’s passage “Where Worlds Collide,” he talked about people that their culture and how it affected their view on the world.…

    • 433 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Grand Torino

    • 1088 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The aim of this paper is to study the interpersonal communication taking place in a cultured shocked neighborhood. The findings of these studies are applied to the film Grand Torino. In addition, this study will discuss the communication styles applied by the characters of the movie. I believe they are essential to understanding the reasons why in general individuals are racists, stereotypical and unable to adapt to different cultures as well as living with those who are different to us. We will first examine how Walt’s character adapts to the cultural diversity. Next, we will examine the cultural differences and conflict between the Hmong people and Walt; an American. Later I discuss the difference between the communication and friendship styles of both cultures. In order to do this study, the movie Grand Torino was watched and notes were recorded over the span of a week.…

    • 1088 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cultural collision is the colliding of two or more very distinct cultures. It causes tension between the two groups; exhibited in Purple Hibiscus and Things Fall Apart. Kambili is the main character in Purple Hibiscus, she demonstrates cultural collision between her and her father. The cultural collision is not strictly between her father and her, it is with Papa and his side of the family preventing Kambili to get to know them. Papa does not like his side of the family because Papa-Nnukwu has an Ibo religion while Papa is Christian, which is a sign of cultural collision. In the second novel, Okonkwo is the main character that struggles the most with cultural collision. Okonkwo has cultural collision between the missionaries and the Ibo people.…

    • 1382 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Jhumpa Lahiri was born on 1967 in London, UK. Her parents were Indian-Bengalis. Lahiri grew up in Rhode Island, USA and she considers herself to be an American. Lahiri is a very educated woman with multiple degrees in English, including a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She did a two-year fellowship at Provincetown 's Fine Arts Work Center. Lahiri lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, a journalist who used to be a Deputy Editor of a Latin American magazine called Time and who now is an Executive Editor for El Diario/La Prensa, New York’s largest Spanish newspaper. Lahiri and Vourvoulias-Bush have two children, Octavio and Noor (Wcislo, Katherine).…

    • 1866 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays