Cultural Alienation and Loss of Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

- The Namesake of Jhumpa Lahri is about finding their personality living between Indian and American cultures. This is a story about Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli who left India for better American opportunities and their children, Gogol and Sonya. As immigrants have a double identity, they are skeptical and afraid of new cultures in the early stages of resolution of new countries. Their children were born in a new world, but they belong to their mother country.

The name of Jhumpa Lahiri in The Namesake shows assimilation as a second generation of Gogol's American immigrants, facing assimilation that Gogol will become an American. In the whole novel, Gogol is suffering from his name. From kindergarten to university, Gogol asked why he was called Nikhil when he was a child, and why he was called Gogol while at university. Gogol has a Russian name, often asking his name and encountering problems with people around.

Jhumpa Lahiri, a prominent author of The Namesake, is born 50/50 and provides important insights about second generation immigrants with dual identity in the United States. With The Namesake's dual identity, people choose from culture, lifestyle, and decision-making. The main character, Gogol Ganguli, is faced with double identity issues through books. In addition, he faces the idea of ​​becoming a real American or Bangladeshi. Gogol 's problematic double identity journey began on the day he was born until he found a true balance between the two identities.

In the process, some of the characters of The Namesake of Jumpa Lahiri have created or denied connections with their own culture, experienced a conflict between generations, and Ashima and Gogol in the book It reflects. The degree of assimilation determines the extent to which the character forms a new identity in the new culture. Forming a connection with tradition plays an important role in the process of identity formation. In The Namesake, Ashima is a kind of person who creates people.

Namesake introduces the lifetime of Ashima Ganguli shipped from India to America with elegance and compassion. This story of Jhumpa Lahiri is a fable that establishes identity using the symbolic meaning between two intersecting cultures. The theme of the whole story relates to the experience of immigration, cultural confrontation, assimilation, and intergenerational connection. While crossing her two worlds, Namesake opens the world of Ashima's experience.