America is known as the "Great Melting Pot." Though this title is often used to express the beauty of the American Dream, it also can serve as a source of considerable strife for those actually having to "melt" their cultural ideals so as to conform to American society. Jhumpa Lahiri explores this idea through the character of Gogul in her novel The Namesake, forcing Gogul to confront the very harsh reality of deciding which culture to follow, his native culture, or his new American culture.
From a very early age, it's clear that Gogul does not respect his own culture as much as he should. He refuses to give in to his parents' demands that he call himself Nikhil, despite the fact that the name he knows is not intended to serve as his name to others. This cultural conflict becomes even worse when he begins to attend school. Had Gogul attended school in India, he would have had to comply with his parents wishes, because having two names is part of his Bengali culture. However, the principal of his elementary school does not know nor respect his culture, she decides that he can go by whatever name he wants, despite the orders of his parents. Thus, Lahiri is able to demonstrate just how disrespectful people can be to cultures they do not understand.
As Gogul grows up, he becomes more and more independent of his Bengali heritage. He often avoids his parents' social events, because all the guests in attendance are of Bengali origin. He attempts to distance himself from his own family as well- a very strong dissonance from Bengali culture, where the family unit is seen as one of the most important aspects of society. However, because he lives in America, he is able to leave his past behind to create a new life for himself. He even changes his name- something absolutely unheard of in Bengali culture, but relatively routine in American culture. Through this name change, Lahiri shows just how powerful cultural peer pressure can be.
Under his new name, Gogul leaves behind his old life and meets multiple women, and one in particular, Maxine, shows just how much Gogul yearns to leave his Bengali culture behind. Maxine's parents are everything Gogul's are not: fun, loving, and respectful of his personal space. Gogul positively adores them, and wishes his own could be like them. Thus, Maxine's parents become Lahiri's instrument to show just how different American culture is from Bengali culture, and from this, just how much Gogul wants to leave his culture behind. Gogul stops answering his parents' telephone calls, and only visits them once during his relationship with Maxine. This abandonment of his family shows his want to leave behind all that reminds him of his heritage.
Everything changes, however, when he returns to Maxine's home and receives a call from his mother that his father has passed away. This one call sends him crashing back to his old life, and he begins to realize just how important his own heritage actually is to him. He returns to his parents' home at once and shaves his head in mourning, a traditional Bengali gesture. He suddenly realizes just how important his father, and by extension, his culture, was to him. He breaks up with Maxine, showing his departure from his need to leave his own culture. This demonstrates Lahiri's ultimate meaning of The Namesake: that no matter how hard one tries to leave behind one's heritage, it never can truly be accomplished.
Throughout his life, Gogul attempts to leave behind his heritage, and yet he never really is able to do so. He travels hundreds of miles from his parents, only to realize that his family, and thus, his Bengali culture, are what he truly values. Despite the internal conflict which rages inside of him over which culture to choose, American or Bengali, that comes about because of his location in America, he winds up choosing his native Bengali culture.
REFLECTION
The open essay proved just how difficult an essay topic can get. Personally, I felt I did alright on my essay, but after reading through the example essays, I'd be hard pressed to score mine anything higher than a seven, and a seven is very generous. However, my essay wasn't all bad, so let's begin with I did well. I definitely included a conclusion and what I feel was a relatively strong thesis as well. I never felt pressed for time on this essay either, so I definitely have been improving over the course of these essays. Furthermore, my diction was rather strong, and I felt like the analysis I used was relatively strong.
However, my essay was FAR from perfect, and thus leaves me with things I can improve upon. First off, I need to plan my open essay a LOT more than my other two essays, so as to avoid spending a large portion of the essay summarizing the plot, which I felt I did. Granted, I did analyze some of the plot, but a majority of my essay felt like a summary. I also need to not panic when initially confronted with the essay topic. Upon seeing it, and then checking the list of books, a couple of which I had read, I was immediately hit with the realization that I barely remembered the names of the characters of those books, let alone sophisticated pieces of their respective prompts. Another area in which I need to improve is the amount of analysis I use in my essay. While I did analyze, I spent less than one-third of my essay analyzing, which I know is far too little to receive a high score.
The open essay proved to me that being given such a wide range of literature to choose from is both a blessing and a curse. While it was nice to know that I had so many options, I drew a blank for a couple of minutes as I attempted to think through some of the books I had read which I felt I could use. In the end, I reverted to Lahiri's The Namesake not because I find it the most fitting book for the prompt, but because I haven't read much fiction since entering high school. Looking back on it now, just about everything I've read could have been applied, I just needed to change my perspective on the books from subjective to analytic.
Moving forward, I have three major goals. First and foremost, to spend a solid five minutes thinking about books I've read and how to use them to my advantage for the prompt. This would enable me to pull from a wider range of material, drastically increasing the likelihood that I could answer the prompt with strong knowledge of the book I'm using. My next goal is to spend at half of the body of my essay analyzing the text, as this will clearly help me to articulate how the book relates to the prompt and my thesis. My third and final goal is to not panic upon seeing the prompt. Because I panicked upon seeing the prompt this time, I forced myself to rashly choose a book solely because I knew it, not because I thought it was the best option. If I am to follow these goals, I will most certainly improve my open essay writing, and that is my ultimate goal.
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