Lahiri includes references to a great many works of literature, all of them read by characters within the novel. 0000002331 00000 n Kal Penn is credited twice - once as Kal Penn in the role of Gogol, and once as Kalpen Modi (his birth name) in the role of Nikhil. Several commemorative coins have been issued from Russia and the USSR. uj Ashoke also has traumatic connection to the train-wreck during which he was reading Gogol. And Lahiri is careful, too, to give these female characters emotional three-dimensionality of their own. He is one of the father Ashoke's favorite authors. In 2009, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a commemorative coin dedicated to Gogol. 0000001222 00000 n The Namesake Gogol is the center of the novel, and it is his journey from childhood into young adulthood that the narrator tracks most closely. Gogol gets some kind of stomach virus. Gogol is also inspired by the design of the Taj Mahal when the family visits India together, when he is in high school. Ashima gives birth to a daughter. The film takes place primarily in Kolkata, New York City, and suburbs of New York City. Enjoy the best Nikolai Gogol Quotes at BrainyQuote. Gogol is Gogol, of course, because his father and mother needed a name for him before leaving the hospital. 0000009372 00000 n The The Namesake quotes below are all either spoken by Gogol/Nikhil Ganguli or refer to Gogol/Nikhil Ganguli. The author of the paper gives a characterization of Gogol in The Namesake, the protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri’s first novel is on a quest who is compelled to reinvent himself, to achieve a sense of dignity that will overcome the embarrassment of his name… Download full paper File format:.doc, available for editing A year later, Gogol goes with his family on an eight-month trip to Calcutta. Gogol the child is the happy outcome of a terrible event in Ashoke’s younger days. “With a slight quiver of recognition, as if he’d known it all along, the perfect pet name for his son occurs to Ashoke… ‘Gogol,’ he … Nair’s adaptation of The Namesake, released four years after Lahiri’s novel, stars Indian superstars Irrfan Khan 2 and Tabu as Ashoke and Ashima, respectively, and Indian-American Kal Penn as Gogol, whose identities—Indian heritage, American nationality—exist concurrently in an uneasy, ever-shifting balance. Gogol and all the characters are relatable, understood and add to the complexity we all have in our close and extended relationships. The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol, published in 1842, is a short story that was a central element in The Namesake.. startxref xref Gogol has been featured many times on Russian and Soviet postage stamps; he is also well represented on stamps worldwide. Nikolai Gogol . Now that Gogol has changed his name, however, he must struggle not only with the duality of his cultural identity but with the duality of his two names. Gogol’s transformation is marked in at least three ways. The novel spends relatively little time discussing Gogol’s friendships, although he is presumed to have some friends. In The Namesake, the story had a special meaning to Gogol’s father Ashoke, who, as a young man, was reading the book when he nearly lost his life in a train derailment.He believed it was the book in his hand that saved his life. were inconspicuous to him, and the ghosts of Nikolai Gogol‟s characters reside in „a place deep in Ashoke‟s soul‟ (Lahiri, 2003, p14). It is for this reason that Gogol rejects his name. At school, Gogol refuses to answer to “Nikhil,” and the principal, realizing that Gogol’s legal name is “Gogol” and that this is the name he prefers, insists that he be called “Gogol” at school despite Ashoke’s objections. %%EOF The appearance of the short story starts early on in the novel when we learn about the train wreck Asoke experienced. 0 The Overcoat is about a man named Akaky Akakievich, who, at first, is content with his life then begins to question his identity. The Namesake Summary. 0000000016 00000 n The Question of Identity 0000001411 00000 n Gogol 's good name, Nikhil, first symbolizes the need to keep the Bengali naming tradition alive even though Gogol's great grandmother's input becomes impossible to achieve. 0000010422 00000 n Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake tells the story of the Gangulis, a Bengali American family grappling with love, loss, and identity in the final thirty years of the 20th Century. The most obvious explanation of the name of the book is the fact that its main character has been named as a tribute to a great Russian writer Gogol. 102 0 obj <> endobj 0000001000 00000 n The Namesake, one Gogol Ganguli, son of Bengali immigrants, Ashima and Ashroke, spends his life attempting to reinvent himself, his name and heritage in order to...what? Gogol Ganguli, the main protagonist, was named after Nikolai Gogol, the author of the story that saved his father’s life in a massive train wreck. 102 20 Gogol’s decision to become Nikhil occurs before he knows his father’s story in detail. Throughout his life, Gogol had avoided reading the work of Nikolai Gogol: "To read the story, he believed, would mean paying tribute to his namesake, accepting it somehow." The Namesake Overcoat Symbolism in The Namesake Victor Joseph G. Malbarosa 12th Grade. T he Namesake is a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri in which young Gogol struggles to reconcile his beliefs with those of his … December 5, 2014 Uncategorized The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol is arguably the most important symbol used in The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. Nikolai Gogol (ニコライ・ゴーゴリ, Nikorai Gōgori?, Ukranian: Мико́ла Го́голь, Mykola Hohol) is a member of the Decay of Angels. His parents, Maria Ivanovna and Vasilii Afanas’evich Gogol-Ianovsky owned land; though the family was not rich, they were relatively well off. Ashima’s father was a painter, and so visual art runs in the family. The renowned author Nikolai Gogol plays an integral part in the plot and characterization of the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. When Ashoke Ganguli survives a catastrophic train accident in India thanks to a book of short stories written by Nikolai Gogol, he decides to move to America. The name “Gogol” was an important one to Ashoke, who adored Nikolai Gogol's work. This leads to the second of Gogol’s transformations: into a student of architecture. By entering your email address you agree to receive emails from SparkNotes and verify that you are over the age of 13. Ashoke also has traumatic connection to the train-wreck during which he was reading Gogol. THE NAMESAKE Judith Caesar Allusions to Nikolai V. Gogol and his short story "The Overcoat" permeate Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake, beginning with Gogol's being the name the protagonist is called through most of the book. %PDF-1.6 %���� Gogol as the Perfect Namesake In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake, Indian parents bestow a Russian name to their first born baby boy; the name is Gogol Ganguli which is after the famous Russian writer, Nikolai V. Gogol.In Lahiri’s novel, the main character fights an identity crisis because of his highly unusual name. Gogol’slife in New York, in turn, leads to his third set of transformations—within romantic relationships. trailer The Namesake depicts the struggles of Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli (Irrfan Khan and Tabu), first-generation immigrants from the East Indian state of West Bengal to the United States, and their American-born children Gogol (Kal Penn) and Sonia (Sahira Nair). It connects him to the seemingly nonsensical traditions that in the past he was 5 Dawes: The Namesake: A Struggle for Identity Published by NSUWorks, 2007 0000001546 00000 n Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. At Yale, Nikhil is able to pursue his love of architecture most directly, and this leads him to graduate study in New York, and a job at a firm there. His ancestors were bearing the name of Gogol-Janovsky and claimed belonging to the upper class Polish Szlachta. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one: ). <<0D119DA2FD74584182EFF3E58A821228>]>> Gogol as the Perfect Namesake Pages: 9 (2074 words) CulturalAlienation and Loss of Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake Pages: 2 (376 words) Scholarly Article on The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri Pages: 4 (953 words) The Namesake and Bend it Like Beckham Belonging Pages: 7 … 0000005872 00000 n Quotations by Nikolai Gogol, Russian Writer, Born March 31, 1809. Read an in-depth analysis of Gogol (Nikhil) Ganguli. As Gogol gains consciousness as a child, maturing from infancy, the third person voice begins to favor his point of view. 121 0 obj<>stream The novel Namesake, written by Jhumpa Lahiri, has a very symbolic title that can be understood in different ways. Share with your friends. 0000005187 00000 n Russian author Nikolai Gogol was born in Velikie Sorochintsy, in what is now Ukraine, on March 20, 1809. Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake is a story that is parallel to Nikolai Gogol’s short story The Overcoat. Who is Gogol in The Namesake? By contrast, Moushumi, who is of Gogol’s world, wants constantly to leave that world, to make a new, more intellectually “rich” life for herself among her cosmopolitan New York friends. x�b```"I�� �a�s� ����^y��"�靧v��_��}��;�E��{��q�]�Y�V At the close of the novel, Gogol begins reading Nikolai Gogol, his namesake, as a way of getting closer to his deceased father, who adored the writer. The name “Gogol” was an important one to Ashoke, who adored Nikolai Gogol’s work. 0000007290 00000 n Instead, Lahiri’s narrator focuses on Gogol’s life with three women: Ruth in college, Maxine in New York, and, finally, Moushumi, his wife. March 1, 2019 by Essay Writer Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake is a story that is parallel to Nikolai Gogol’s short story The Overcoat. https://study.com/academy/lesson/gogol-in-the-namesake.html 0000003027 00000 n When Gogol asks his father, when he is college, whether the name Gogol reminds Ashoke of nearly dying, Ashoke counters that “Gogol” is for him a name of hope, of joy—of life. This lesson focuses on Ashoke Ganguli, one of the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's novel ''The Namesake''. Nikolai Gogol, the Russian author, is introduced in this chapter, and will go on to be the most important outside text in the work. In 1984, as a junior in high school, Gogol is assigned Nikolai Gogol's "The Overcoat" as an assignment for his English class. 0000003725 00000 n &. Gogol is the center of the novel, and it is his journey from childhood into young adulthood that the narrator tracks most closely. 0000000696 00000 n You can view our. Each woman, in turn, marks a stage in Gogol’s development. Through these romantic relationships, then, Gogol tests out different identities, different ways of relating to himself and his family, over time. 0000008330 00000 n 0000006568 00000 n Streets have been named after Gogol in various towns, including Moscow, Sofia, Lipetsk, Odessa, Myrhorod, Krasnodar, Vladimir, Vladivostok, Penza, Petrozavodsk, Riga, Bratislava, Belgrade, Harbinand many other towns and ci… But the change to Nikhil also represents a maturation, an attempt to find a new self in college. Nikolai (Mykola) Gogol was a Russian humorist, dramatist, and novelist of Ukrainian origin. 0000012521 00000 n Gogol also feels alienated, especially when he realizes that "no one he knows in the world, in Russia or India or America or anywhere, shares his name. 0000011468 00000 n In particular, Gogol seems not to recognize that Maxine truly loves him, and wishes to know his family’s practices in detail. His ability is named The Overcoat. Nikolay Gogol, in full Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol, (born March 19 [March 31, New Style], 1809, Sorochintsy, near Poltava, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now in Ukraine]—died February 21 [March 4], 1852, Moscow, Russia), Ukrainian-born humorist, dramatist, and novelist whose works, written in Russian, significantly influenced the direction of Russian literature. 0000004469 00000 n First, his name. His name Gogol “sounds ludicrous to his ears, lacking dignity of gravity.” (76) He does not want to read Nikolai Gogol because he thinks it “would mean paying tribute to his namesake, accepting it somehow” (92). Gogol’s transformation is marked in at least three ways. Gogol's father, a Ukrainian writer living on his old family estate, had … Looking for homework help that takes the stress out of studying? At the end of their trip, the family visits the Taj Mahal at Agra. At first Nikhil is the name of a stranger to Gogol, and he can't use it because it isn't him. 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Transformations: into a student of architecture 's favorite authors what is now Ukraine, on March,., too, to give these female characters emotional three-dimensionality of their trip the!
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