67 pages • 2 hours read
Jhumpa LahiriThe Namesake
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “1968”
Ashima Ganguli is a Bengali woman living in Boston with her husband, Ashoke, who is doing his PhD in electrical engineering at MIT. Ashima is eight and a half months pregnant with her first child. As she is preparing food that she craves from her birthplace of Calcutta, India, she feels the first contractions.
In hospital, she awaits the birth of her child, which takes a full day; for the first time in her life, she spends the night alone with strangers. She has lived in the US for 18 months, feeling displaced, and missing her home country. She fears having to raise a child outside of India.
She remembers how Ashoke came with his parents to arrange a wedding between them. Seeing his American shoes in front of the room, she secretly tried them on, feeling excited. Ashoke is “slightly plump, scholarly-looking but still youthful” (9), and he refuses to look at her during the first meeting. Ashima is tall for a Bengali woman and slender. She learns his name only after the betrothal, and they begin to get to know each other slowly while in Boston.
While waiting for news, Ashoke distances himself from other fathers-to-be. He remembers his grandfather, a professor of European Literature at the University of Calcutta, who nurtured in Ashoke the love for Russian literature: “They will never fail you” (14). During one of his journeys to visit his grandparents seven years before, Ashoke survived a terrible train derailment only because he was still sitting up late at night reading the story “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol. A man, whom Ashoke met briefly on the train before dying in the crash, advised Ashoke to travel and see the world.
Ashoke spent the next year immobile, recovering from his numerous wounds. He kept up with his studies, and once recovered, he surprised and saddened his family by deciding to leave India; “He was born twice in India, and then a third time, in America” (25).
Chapter 2 Summary
Ashima gives birth to a baby boy, and both she and Ashoke are delighted with the baby, having “never seen a more perfect thing” (28). They wait for a letter from Ashima’s grandmother, who is traditionally the one to name her grandchildren, but the letter does not arrive. Initially, the Gangulis are not in a rush, as in India “it wasn’t unusual for years to pass before the right name, the best possible name, was determined” (30), Bengali’s have two names: daknam, a pet name which only family and friends use, and bhalonam, the official name, which has a deeper meaning. However, the American customs force them to choose a name for the birth certificate, which they think of as daknam, and Ashoke names the boy Gogol, after the writer he believes saved his life.
The Gangulis’ modest apartment consists of three interconnected rooms, and their landlords, the Montgomerys, live on the two upper floors. They are a family of hippies and have two daughters, Amber and Clover. Ashima at first cries often, believing she will not be able to raise the baby in America without the protective presence of her family, but she soon develops a routine. Other letters from their relatives arrive, but still no letter from Grandmother, and before Ashima can write her, she learns the woman has had a stroke and is incapacitated.
The Gangulis begin to meet other Bengalis in Boston and form friendships. As Gogol turns six months old, they hold an annaprasan—the rice ceremony. Bengalis do not baptize their children, but they celebrate their first consumption of solid food. During the ceremony, they offer Gogol a piece of soil, a pen, and a dollar bill to see what the boy’s destiny will hold: landowner, scholar, or businessman. Gogol rejects all three.
After Gogol’s first birthday, the family plans a trip to India. Ashima buys many symbolic presents for their families, but, tired, almost loses them on the train ride home. One night, her brother Rana phones from India, informing Ashoke that Ashima’s father has died of a heart attack. The Gangulis fly to India six days later, and Ashima symbolically leaves the gifts for her father on a train.
Chapter 3 Summary: “1971”
The Gangulis move to a university town near Boston, where Ashoke works as an assistant professor, a job that fulfills him. Ashima misses the urbanity of a bigger city, especially as she does not drive. As Gogol starts going to a nursery, she feels lonely and aimless again.
Two years later, the family buys a newly built house, and their furniture and Gogol’s toys come from yard sales, which makes Ashima feel ashamed. They drive around exploring the area and go to the beach late afternoons for walks.
When Gogol is five, Ashima becomes pregnant again. The pregnancy is difficult, so Ashoke must take over the domestic duties and care for Gogol. During this time, Gogol reluctantly starts kindergarten at the local elementary school. His parents have finally decided on a “good” name for him, Nikhil, but he chooses to remain Gogol, which the principal, Mrs. Lapidus encourages. His parents give in, and thus begin a series of adjustments to their child’s American upbringing.
In May 1973, Sonali, meaning “she who is golden” (73), is born. They call her Sonia. Gogol quickly bonds with his sister. When her annaprasan comes, Sonia refuses to eat solid food, but she chooses both the dirt and the dollar, showing she “is the true American” (74). The Gangulis have many Bengali friends in the area, but they slowly lose touch with their relatives in India. They visit several times, but each visit leaves them feeling more alienated. They have mostly assimilated to the American way of life, and for the sake of the children, they even start to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, although they also observe versions of Indian holidays. They enroll Gogol into a Bengali class, which he hates because it prevents him from going to the art class he enjoys.
As Gogol grows older, he begins to understand the rarity of both of his names, which becomes obvious during a school trip to a local cemetery where the children do grave rubbing, and Gogol connects with now rare names of the original settlers.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
Jhumpa Lahiri uses traditional narrative techniques in this novel to achieve a sense of realism that will help the readers connect more closely to the predicaments of the Ganguli family. The point of view is third person omniscient, with the narrative thrust changing from one centered consciousness to another; in the first chapters, the perspective is predominantly Ashima’s, Ashoke’s, and Gogol’s. By utilizing the third-person perspective, the author is able to bring us into the characters’ thoughts and feelings while switching from one viewpoint to another.
The first chapter focuses on Ashima’s sense of displacement, as she arrives to the USA from India, and on the birth of her first child. Having grown up in a wide community of relatives and family friends in an Eastern culture very different from American culture, Ashima experiences a profound sense of solitude, isolation, and alienation in the first years of her life in America. Chapter 1 symbolically traces her complex emotions through the act of protracted childbirth, through which Ashima experiences the full force of her solitude: In India, she would have been surrounded with her family. Ashima’s fear of the new country transposes itself to her fear for her child and his coming into the world all alone and unsupported. In this way, Lahiri foreshadows Gogol’s later ambivalence toward his heritage and his country of birth equally.
Threading through the chapter the motif of birth, Lahiri speaks of Ashoke’s “three births”: his coming into the world as a baby, his surviving the terrible train accident in his early twenties, and his decision to start a new life in America. By identifying these changes as rebirths, Lahiri emphasizes the necessity for change and adaptation in a world of constant challenges. Ashoke proves that he is capable of meeting these challenges by adapting to new circumstances and choosing to make the most of them. We see his adaptability first when he spends the year of recovery after the train accident studying and developing a plan that will allow him to move to America.
In Chapter 2, Lahiri uses the motif of names, and particularly the naming of Gogol, to underscore the difference in Bengali and American traditions, thus reminding us of the immigrants’ status as one of always balancing between the old and the new. The custom of gifting a newborn with two names in Bengali culture emphasizes the complexity with which they approach the entry of every new life into their community. The pet name clearly remains attached to those with whom the person is intimate, while the official name is a matter of utmost respect and even awe, especially as it always carries a meaning. Thus, Ashima learns her husband’s name only after being engaged to him.
Gogol’s name is the central leitmotif of the novel, referenced even in the title. The fact that the name is not Bengali or American, but Russian, introduces an additional element of Gogol’s future identity crisis, especially until he learns the reason behind his name. However, since his pet name becomes his official name, this brings Gogol more fully into the American culture and symbolically distances him from the culture of his country of origin and from his parents. The name comes to represent the crux of the search for a sense of belonging for the children of immigrants and highlights their constant quest for the imaginary middle ground that they strive for. It is interesting to note that, even though Gogol’s younger sister receives a proper Bengali name, Sonali, she also becomes known for her pet name, also Russian, Sonia. This implies the connection between the siblings borne out of their status as children of immigrants. However, since Sonia’s name comes with no immediate mystery or confusion, she does not develop the same sense of ambivalence and displacement as Gogol does.
Another significant element, introduced in Chapters 2 and 3, is the ceremony of annaprasan, the first consumption of solid food for the baby. This custom again highlights the difference between Eastern and Western cultures and the fundamentally different understanding of the philosophy of life and religion. While in the West such ceremonies usually connect to the customs of the church to which the family belongs, Eastern cultures celebrate the natural processes in the development of a child. Gogol’s failing to select one of the proffered choices foreshadows his later sense of unstable identity and a profound notion of ambivalence. Sonia’s choice of two items identifies her as a character who will adapt more readily to the challenges of American life. Furthermore, Lahiri also connects her choice to the family’s growing alienation from India and their Bengali relatives, and the change of their focus onto their new American children and their needs.
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