Love in The Namesake

Throughout Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, themes of marriage, adore, and intimacy are carefully woven into the lives of the Ganguli family members namely Gogol and his parents. The novel starts with Ashima and Ashoke, Gogol’s parents, and the beginnings of their arranged marriage, and follows for a brief handful of chapters the improvement of their intimacy and relationship. Shortly soon after their move to America, Ashima offers birth to Gogol and the perspective shifts to him. Gogol struggles with his identity as he progresses through public college, and has a number of short affairs with girls, till he manages to enter severe relationships with Ruth, Maxine, and lastly Moushumi. The anthology of his relationships in comparison to his parent’s relationship deeply signifies how really like comes differently to the a variety of folks in this story. While there are several central themes in the novel, love is one of the most defining and characterizing of them all. The major theme of really like in The Namesake is shown via his much more prominent relationships with females, such as Ruth, Maxine, and Moushumi.

Gogol’s first major relationship in the story is the connection he shares with Ruth. Whilst this connection doesn’t final extended, it is one particular of the most important in the novel. Gogol meets Ruth on a train ride back to New Haven to see his household, and swiftly becomes infatuated with her and almost everything she represents. Ruth, also a student at Yale, is a quirky, white American who embodies every thing that her parents are not, and Gogol gets his 1st taste at American enjoy. About a year after they started dating, Ruth starts studying abroad at Oxford for a semester, but when she becomes enamored with the culture and professors, she decides to remain for an additional term. After spending so a lot time apart, Ruth and Gogol uncover themselves arguing and typically at odds with every other’s new identities, stating that “her speech was peppered with words and phrases she’d picked up in England, like ‘I imagine’ and ‘I suppose’ and ‘presumably’…. [b]ut inside days of getting with each other again in New Haven, in an apartment he’d rented on Howe Street with close friends, they’d begun fighting, each admitting in the end that something had changed” (Lahiri 120). The relationship ends amongst the two, and Gogol is lonely on campus. This initial connection that Gogol sets up is imperative because it sets up a precedent for the ladies he will seek for future relationships, which means that he will actively seek ladies who are Anglo-American, liberal, and scholarly, and since it introduces him to love as a entire. Ruth sets up a stark comparison to Gogol’s parents’ partnership and their cultural practices. Gogol, being unfamiliar with really like, falls for Ruth instantaneously and enables himself to turn out to be enveloped in the comfort that Ruth gives him in their connection, and as a result allowing him to additional push himself from his parents’ lives and culture (Lahiri).

The next key connection that Gogol partakes in is his partnership with Maxine. In stated partnership, Gogol finds initial solace in the separation he gains from his loved ones and their culture, as nicely as the freedom that comes with that, till eventually she becomes a symbol of guilt and his father’s death. Shortly following he has graduated from architecture school, Gogol is in New York at a lush celebration when he meets Maxine, a young, appealing, Anglo-American female who fits his rebellious type of woman that he has been in search of because young adulthood. Gogol appears to be infatuated with Maxine’s life and life-style, rather than Maxine herself, and he quickly becomes envious of her identity. Maxine lives her lavish life unapologetically, and is entirely comfortable with her identity, some thing that Gogol has struggled with since birth. Maxine and her family represent freedom from his family’s lifestyle and the inevitable confrontation he will have to have with his own identity. Their relationship is strong, until the 1st conflict that arises in Gogol’s conscious. This first problem happens when, on his 27th birthday, he and the Ratliffs are at their cabin in New Hampshire to celebrate. He is surrounded by strangers, who he claims will overlook about him by the subsequent day, and Pamela, a household pal of the Ratliffs, tends to make racist comments about him being Indian and assumes that he can not get sick because of this. She questions his origins and Lydia, meaning well, states that Gogol (Nikhil) was born in the United States, but then right away questions it herself. Gogol is irritated by the comments, but then gains an understanding that he is incredibly diverse from the Ratliffs, even although he had been living with them for an extended amount of time. The subsequent, and final, crux that happens amongst Maxine and Gogol is his father’s death. Gogol quickly feels guilt that he had not spent a lot more time with his loved ones and therefore associates that guilt with his partnership with Maxine. Gogol spends a lot more time with his family, which upsets Maxine, and the connection ends (Lahiri). This connection is essential for Gogol’s development as a character, as nicely as his perception of really like and family. Gogol tries to separate himself from his household and their cultural traditions, which Maxine’s relationship with him permits for, but quickly he develops a realization that he and Maxine, as nicely as all of his other Anglo-American girlfriends, are too different and that the women he has been with cannot relate to his background, identity, or emotions that come with the two. This partnership leads him to accept his household more, feeling as though he had taken it for granted after his father passes away, and turns back to them to regain a correct sense of identity.

Following his connection with Maxine Ratliff, factors appear to be going well for Gogol as he returns to his family members and connects to his heritage, and soon after a short affair with a married woman, Gogol’s mother sets him up with Moushumi. The two share a couple of dates, one in which Gogol purchases an pricey hat for her, and a number of months later they begin dating. Moushumi, who has spent the majority of her early life in England and Paris, is significantly diverse from Gogol and this appeals to his “type” of women that he typically seeks. Moushumi tells Gogol her life story, followed by an introduction of her ex fiancé Graham and a short explanation of the finish of their partnership the summer time prior to she and Gogol met. Gogol and Moushumi marry as per their family’s request, in a semi awkward realization that the sari that Moushumi is wearing is from her preceding engagement. Months later the two of them are staying in Paris for a conference that Moushumi is attending, and Gogol starts to really feel like a tourist both in Paris and in Moushumi’s life. The couple visits a party in which Moushumi betrays Gogol’s trust by exposing his good name. The story then jumps to Moushumi’s point of view, and her high school crush is introduced in a flashback that brings critical foreshadowing to the plot, followed by her writing down Dimitri’s cell telephone number and contacting him. The two start possessing an affair, and the two split soon after Moushumi accidentally tells Gogol about Dimitri and their indiscretion (Lahiri). This partnership is vital for Gogol because it permits him to connect to his roots, discover his most correct identity, get over his father’s death, and offers a clear comparison amongst himself and Moushumi. Moushumi, obviously unhappy with the partnership and the safety of becoming married to somebody so related to herself, cheats on Gogol and represents the rebellious period that Gogol himself went via as an adolescent. Moushumi and Gogol each come from Indian parents, in foreign lands, and went through a period of rejection towards their Indian roots. The distinction amongst the two characters is that Gogol has currently matured and realized that his family members and heritage is critical, whilst Moushumi is nonetheless rejecting that way of life. This relationship leads to Gogol accepting his family and the namesake he was provided by his deceased father.

Gogol approaches really like in a lot of different methods throughout The Namesake, but there is a clear pattern to his methodology towards love and females (Lahiri). Gogol seeks out what he does not have but wants in his relationships, such as with Ruth. He falls in adore with Ruth’s carefree intelligence and slight freedom from family members, and with Maxine he falls for her life-style and her comfort within her personal identity. Lastly, with Moushumi he falls for her heritage and background, as nicely as sense of household. Gogol actively seeks out traits that he does not have, such as comfort with oneself, and he tries to feed off of those traits to gain them himself. These relationships all lead to Gogol’s own acceptance of himself and his identity, and for that purpose makes the themes of enjoy and relationships really crucial.