The Namesake

Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.

Chapters 1-3

Reading Check

1. How did Ashima and Ashoke meet?

2. Where does the name Gogol originate?

3. What happens to Ashoke as a young man that gives him a limp?

4. What do Indian families traditionally do instead of baptism?

Multiple Choice

1. What does Ashima do before she meets Ashoke?

A) She vows to never love him.

B) She tries on his shoes.

C) She spies on him in secret.

D) She takes his favorite book from his room.

2. Why is it ironic that Ashoke’s mother chides him for his love of literature, saying he will be reading a book when he dies?

A) She is hit by a bus while reading.

B) He thinks of reading books as the only time he feels alive.

C) He is obsessed with books about death.

D) He is rescued because of the book he was reading.

3. Why does the family leave the hospital without a bhalanam, or formal name, for Gogol?

A) They are waiting on a letter from their grandmother.

B) They cannot think of one.

C) They want Gogol to choose it himself.

D) They want to Americanize him, so he will not have one.

4. What does Gogol’s rejection of everything at the rice ceremony foreshadow about his character?

A) his rejection of Indian culture

B) his difficulty finding meaning in various aspects of his life

C) his indecision in his career

D) his desire to become an artist

5. Why does Ashima think that being an immigrant and being pregnant are similar?

A) They both make her feel like an outcast.

B) They both make her feel special.

C) They both make her feel as though she is perpetually in between two states.

D) They both make her feel the particular burdens of being an immigrant wife.

6. What is symbolized by Gogol’s continuing to go by his pet name when he enters school?

A) the way he longs to emulate his writer hero

B) the way immigrant assimilation is built on cultural compromise

C) the difficulty Gogol has defining himself in his home

D) his lack of knowledge about Indian customs

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why is Ashima unhappy in America in the early chapters of the novel?

2. When the novel says that Ashoke was “born twice in India, and then a third time, in America,” what does it refer to (25)?

3. Why do Indians traditionally have two names?

4. Why does Ashima deliberately leave her gifts behind on the train?

5. Why is Sonia called a true American at her rice ceremony?

6. Why does Gogol think the gravestone rubbings he makes are significant?

Chapters 4-6

Reading Check

1. What monument does the family visit in India that inspires Gogol?

2. What embarrasses Gogol deeply in his high school English class?

3. What does Gogol do before he begins classes at Yale?

4. What does Gogol choose for a career?

Multiple Choice

1. Why doesn’t Ashoke tell Gogol about the significance of his birthday gift of Nikolai Gogol’s collected stories?

A) His birthday should be about celebrating life.

B) His son is clearly uninterested.

C) He is suddenly embarrassed by the meaning.

D) He does not think his son will relate.

2. What does Gogol think makes him brave enough to kiss Kim at the college party he attends?

A) pretending to be an architecture student

B) being away from his parents

C) using his formal name

D) trying alcohol for the first time

3. What does Gogol leave off his form when he changes his name?

A) the significance of the new name

B) his reason for changing his name

C) his parents’ information

D) his nationality

4. What does ABCD refer to?

A) the extra work Indians have to do to use English

B) a political movement at Yale University

C) an inside joke among Bengalis about eating American food

D) first-generation Indian immigrants who are having difficulty assimilating

5. What surprises Gogol about the Ratliffs’ interest in India?

A) They assume it is a place that has great beauty and culture.

B) They are knowledgeable about Indian religious customs.

C) They have traveled there extensively.

D)  They know he likely has two names.

6. What does being in New Hampshire make Gogol feel?

A) worried

B) free

C) lonely

D) different from those around him

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Who does Gogol realize is the person who doesn’t take him seriously because of his name?

2. How does Gogol feel about his parents using the name Nikhil?

3. Why doesn’t Gogol bring Ruth home to his family?

4. How does Gogol feel about his father’s story of the origin of his name?

5. Why is Gogol so drawn to Max and her family?

6. Why are Max’s dinner guests surprised that Gogol gets sick in India, and what is Lydia Ratliff’s defense of his claim?

Chapters 7-9

Reading Check

1. What happens to Ashoke in Ohio?

2. How do Gogol and Moushumi meet each other (as adults)?

3. How does Gogol know Moushumi from his past?

4. Why do Moushumi and Gogol have different ideas about Paris?

Multiple Choice

1. What is on the Christmas card Ashima is planning to send out?

A) a drawing reproducing one of her grandfather’s paintings

B) a drawing of the Taj Mahal based on one of Gogol’s drawings

C) a drawing of a train traveling the Indian countryside

D) a drawing of her home on Pemberton Avenue

2. What memory does Gogol have on his train ride back to New York?

A) He remembers when he and his father walked out to the end of a rocky beach.

B) He remembers when his father told him about his namesake.

C) He remembers when he and his father celebrated Thanksgiving alone together.

D) He remembers his father’s disapproval of his relationship with Max.

3. What drives Max and Gogol apart?

A) Max’s jealousy over Gogol’s returning to his family for so long

B) Gogol’s lack of career ambition after his father’s death

C) Gogol’s affair with a fellow student

D) Max’s desire to get married

4. What causes Moushumi to break off her engagement with Graham?

A) his insistence on an American wedding

B) his desire to have children right away

C) his lack of respect for her career

D) his dislike for their trip to India together

5. What does Gogol worry about in his marriage to Moushumi?

A) that she resents him for being more comfortable in his Indian heritage

B) that she sees the relationship as a kind of capitulation

C) that their past dislike for each other will make a resurgence

D) that she sees him as unintelligent since she is an academic

6. What is a reason Gogol is uncomfortable with Donald and Astrid?

A) They are part of Moushumi’s past life with Graham.

B) They make him feel un-American.

C) They have the success he desires.

D) They lack sophistication.

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Ashima realize about Ashoke’s moving to Ohio after his death?

2. Why does Gogol stay at his father’s apartment instead of going to a hotel?

3. What is ironic about Gogol and Moushumi’s relationship?

4. What does Gogol realize about his parents’ marriage when he himself marries?

5. Why is Gogol unhappy at first on his vacation to Paris?

6. Why does Gogol feel betrayed by Moushumi’s revelation of his name change?

Chapters 10-12

Reading Check

1. What is the cause of Gogol and Moushumi’s divorce?

2. How do Dimitri Desjardins and Moushumi know each other?

3. What is significant for Ashima about the Christmas party in the final chapter?

4. What does Gogol discover as he is packing up his childhood room?

Multiple Choice

1. Why does Moushumi decline her fellowship to France?

A) because she does not believe in herself

B) because of her sense of responsibility as a wife

C) because she is afraid she will grow apart from Gogol

D) because they cannot afford it

2. How does Moushumi feel about her affair?

A) strangely at peace

B) constantly guilty

C) thrilled by the deceit

D) resigned to her own unhappiness

3. What does Gogol intend to get Moushumi for a Christmas present?

A) a beautiful, expensive hat

B) a portrait of the two of them

C) a trip to Italy

D) a new apartment

4. What is a reason that Ashima is glad her son has American ideas about marriage?

A) He does not feel a duty to stay married.

B) He married for love instead of economic stability.

C) He does not have to live with the shame of his failure.

D) He has not made marriage into a defining feature of his personality.

5. How does Ashima feel about her home in America?

A) She is glad to be finally leaving.

B) It still does not feel like home, but it is the world she knows.

C) She feels fully assimilated and thinks of herself as American.

D) She cannot bear to stay without Ashoke.

6. How does Gogol characterize his family’s life?

A) as a destined journey

B) as an impossible feat of bravery

C) as a normal, typical American experience

D) as a string of accidents

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does Moushumi like that Gogol changed his name to Nikhil?

2. What do the strands of pashmina stuck to Moushumi’s dress symbolize?

3. What question is Gogol afraid to ask Moushumi?

4. How does Gogol learn of Moushumi’s affair?

5. What is significant about Ashima’s Christmas parties?

6. Why does Gogol leave the Christmas party to read?