PROBLEMATIZING IDENTITY: A STUDY OF GOGOL’S CHARACTER IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S THE NAMESAKE

Abstract

Jhumpa Lahiri was  born to an educated middle class Bengali parents in London and grown up in Rhodes Island, Lahiri authentically portrays her  experiences of problematizing identity in her first novel The Namesake. In this novel Lahiri’s experiences of growing up as a child of immigrants resemble that of her protagonist, Gogol Ganguly. Lahiri belongs to the second generation of Indian Diaspora whose ongoing quest for identity never seems to end. They feel sandwiched between the country of their parents and the country of their birth. They are to maintain ties between the ideologies of these two countries which are poles apart. But in this process they are caught between acute identity crisis from where there is nowhere to go. Through Gogol, Lahiri presents identity crisis which she herself has faced acutely. Gogol struggles throughout the novel with his dual identity - American and Bengali. He changes his name in an effort to do away with any negative connotation there is with the origin of his name. To Gogol, it is not connected to him or his Bengali heritage in any way and therefore he initially rejects it. The Namesake expands on the perplexities of the immigrants experience and the search for identity. Gogol is burdened with the seemingly absurd name of the long-dead writer, awkwardly struggles to define himself. Lahiri represents Gogol as someone who is confused about his identity, she also presents Gogol as a prototypical transnational agent who lives between two different worlds with the possibility of creating multiplicity of identities.