The Namesake' Identity Essay

Identity is an undeniable and essential fact of life that our society is controlled by money and identity. Many poor People are living in society they are struggling for their basic needs and food. They are working hard for their daily routine it is also a great challenge for them. The government doesn’t show any care for them because they don’t have any identity. People living in the society were giving more importance to identity. If they have money they can fulfill their wish and desires. Money decides identity. While comparing the poor people’s identity with the rich people, Poor people are considered as not important. Even a relative in the family welcomes the one who is rich and doesn’t even respect the poor one. It is a sad truth among the people nowadays.

Everyone in the world has an identity of their own, It starts to develop even in the stage of childhood. During childhood probably a baby will cry, immediately the caretakers take care of the baby and try to find the reason for the baby crying and put their effort into stopping crying. It makes the baby believe his feelings and needs are important and comes to understand that it is valuable. If the caretakers respond in an appropriate way the baby starts to believe that his feelings and needs are not important.

After an individual has grown up, he/she moves out of the house goes to other places, and meets several new people in day-to-day life. One gets messages about values from teachers, friends, neighbors and also from parents, it’s considered as the identity among them. As adults one starts to make decisions to develop one’s value. It plays an important part in identifying our way of making and correct decisions choosing the good and bad identity.

Those who make decisions on their own will become less dependent and the people with low self-esteem are usually more dependent on others. They like to be influenced by others. They react more strongly and hurt themselves deeply. They used to take everything personally.

Developing a strong sense of identity is important. People who don’t have a strong sense of their own identity may influenced easily by others. They are not sure about making decisions and it leads to poor self-esteem it causes depression anxiety and many disorders. They like to become more addicted to alcohol and drugs. Those conditions generally resolve on their own. With the power of self-esteem they can do anything boldly, the struggle doesn’t matter but the victory lasts for a long and it stands for identity.

Identity is an opportunity to become, it is an uncertain, impermanent concept. Identity seems to be an unavoidable in the society. Identity can be achieved by trapping reputation, habits, abilities, name, and appearance. It also has an ultimate and social purpose with culture. Identity is merely a construct of thought according to relative values and conditions, it means our concept of who we are.

Allan Watt indicates identity as impermanent and its dependence on sense, he also called identity a ‘sensation’. He says that when identity is granted, the question remains “Who am I”. Identity is also a quality of identifying a person. The definition of identity can be said as a view of aspects of how one person behaves in the past and how he transforms himself in the future, it expresses the continuity of past ancestry and future aspirations. Gender identity plays an important role in psychology. The term identity refers to self-reflection. Sociology tells about the concept of identity as a role of behavior. It tells about the learning of social roles through personal experience. Identity negotiates society with a large meaning of identity and explains it according to different meanings.

‘Social identity’ identifies an individual among a group. Psychologists use the term identity to describe the personal identity that makes a person unique. While discussing a person’s identity discipline is an important concept to consider. Erik Erikson is one of the psychologists, who had a special interest in identity. He rests a distinction among the psychological sense of continuity known as the ego identity. Some of the tradition was called Cultural identity. Identity is a response to increased sophisticated challenges it charted in terms of a series. In some of the works of Erikson, he talks about the development of a strong ego identity, it also deals with a stable society and culture is a strong sense of identity.

A person displays relative weakness or relative strength in terms of exploration and commitment. It has been categorized into four identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, identity moratorium, and identity achievement. Diffusion is when a person lacks exploration in life and interest in committing. Foreclosure is when a person has not chosen extensively in the past and is ready to commit some relevant values to achieve the goal or roles in the future. A moratorium is when a person displays a kind of unpredictable moves, he’s ready to make choices but is not sure to commit them, and the period of not sure leads to confusion. Finally achievement is when he chooses the choices and is ready to commit them.

Self-psychology is compelled to investigate the question of how the personal relates to the social environment. The theories place themselves in the ‘psychological’ they focus on the actions in terms of mental events, it also deals with the issue of identity at the level of collective behavior also known as collective identity. Many people gain a sense of positivity from their identity group for a sense of community and belonging. Many of the researchers are interested in the issue of discrimination they address it. They favor those who the part of the group and the others are considered to be outsiders. Both of these have been considered and got great attention among the social identity tradition group. Social identity theory proves that merely crafting cognitive distinction between in and out groups, has been evaluated by the people.

Some of the social situations compel people to attach to self-identities. People may feel cornered and they always interpret certain components such as shift to different groups and self-identifications. This shows the educational background and occupational states and tells that everything has been influenced by the role of identity in society. These identities construct what people want to be and how others see them.

Interest in social psychology is related to the identity formation strategies used to adapt to the social world. And it talks about the individual manners of different behavior. It engages in child-like behavior and shows extensive dependency on others and finally, it doesn’t have any meaningful engagement. It has a sense of dissatisfaction due to personal and social, it develops the imperfection with society. Interact with the role models and develop the relationship.

Identity formation was otherwise known as individuation. It is the development of the individual personality. A person’s actual identity insists on a sense of community it also includes a sense of uniqueness and affiliation. Identity leads to some sort of comprehension and separate entity. The undifferentiated individual tends to become unique and the facts of a person’s life undergo through an invisible whole. Identity is described as finite and separate distinct parts.

Many theories of development have aspects of identity and about the belief in each person’s identity, they experience different conflicts. Erikson talks about facing the complexities of one’s own identity. Especially Erikson concerned about social and occupational identities, faces the complexities of one’s own identity, and the crisis is resolved with one’s identity achievement.

When someone forms a sense of companionship and friendship with others is also one of an identity. ‘Identity versus Role confusion’ crisis is not solved by Erikson with full confusion about the future and roles in adulthood. Failure is also a shared identity, many of them have failed in many areas in adulthood it would not be the end of the point it is the starting point of identity and leads to the spread of our own identity. Professional identity is the identification of the profession that has been aligned with roles, responsibilities, and values. It is a type of social identification that defines themselves. An ethnic identity is the identification of ethnicity. Ethnicity is an inherited status based on the society, it is a presumed common ancestry. Ethnic group was spared from society by the government and upper-class people it was united by culture, behavior, and linguistics.

Self-identity is the sum of knowledge and understanding their oneself. It is different from self-consciousness and awareness of one’s self. Cultural identity is the identity of a culture or group and it also influences the individual who belongs to the group or culture. Historical culture also influences the individual identity it also tells about the ancient and explains the culture and tradition, that has been followed during the past years. The Modern culture tells about the changes of the future and the importance of changes many of the volunteering people select the modern culture for the reason of comfort zone.

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The Namesake explores the power of one’s own identity and it is a struggle for identity. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is a story of culture and it molds our attitudes to direct our lives in the changing society. The novel tells about the lives of Ashima and Asoke Ganguli, when they got married both of them left India and went to America they started to love to live the American dream and both of them provided the best life for themselves. Gogol was their only son, the carrier of their family, struggling to find his identity while attempting to mold his family’s expectations and his wish to live in American society. The major theme of the novel is Identity it vividly illustrates and examines the importance of one’s name and background. Some factors contribute to problems with identity that are not recognizable in Indian culture but become hindrances for many immigrants who enter the United States.

There is a great sense of identity in one’s name and significance in maintaining the family name. A person says he used to listen to her friend say over and over again “It’s not just a name”, he had been abandoned by her father. He didn’t like to take his father's name forever. He decided to change it legally instead for the pain of carrying on the legacy that he couldn’t bear. Then many of them come to understand that a name is not just a name it is a reminder of past life that continuously haunts them till the end oftheirs life. Ganguli's family also faces the same problem in The Namesake.

Ashima and Ashoke want to give their son a name that will add meaning to his life. Both of them chose his maternal great-grandmother to give the name to their son, she would be sacred and perfect in every way. Unfortunately, she doesn’t arrive to name the child. Ashoke gave his son a name he thinks the name represented the hope for a better life but he didn’t expect it would represent a tragedy.

Dawes also shares something about identity he wants to gain more knowledge about identity. Knowledge of a source of the name begins the path of life. Ashoke and Ashima are satisfied with their names. Their names drive their lives in a positive direction and show the right path in their hardest times provide them with strength and face everything with determination. Ashoke’s name was respected in the novel according to his culture it is sacred and never uttered by his wife. Such names are respected in other cultures also.

Dawes tells about his old friend who recently migrated from Korea. He observes him he refers to her brother as Opa and father as Apa but he wouldn’t say in their presence it is a sign of irreverence and disrespect. He observed in her family, that some of them in their family give their parents' grandparents'nts names to their children otherwise they give their first name or first letter to the child and try to keep the name through generations. Through the names, culture dictates the essence. But everyone accepts it. Age is also establishing one’s identity in the society. The same culture has been involved in the novel. The protagonist's name not only carries the meaning and direction more than a sense of cultural identity among other Bengalis.

However the Bengali names provide distress and hatred, they try to find a place in American society. The name Gogol represents Backward Bengal heritage which he longs to deny. Gogol’s Father respects him not only for his writing but for the new meaning of his life. The stories shed inside on mysteries of the world. Ashok was not forced to honor the Russian writer, he wanted to respect him and he was responsible for giving a meaningful life to his son, as a father, so he gave the name with the acceptance of his heart. But the decision of Ashok was changed as a hinder for his son. The name connected him to his father and seemingly nonsensical traditions.

Gogol considered that the writer is Russian and he thinks how it connects to the Bengal heritage. Gogol, who chooses to reject his name spent his entire life in America he is not ashamed of his association with his father. He is ashamed of his history and feels inferior to the superior American society. Being a part of an immigrant family, he had observed the mindset among other immigrant families from one country to another part of the world, that it would change their lives and background.

They are supposed to accept something that many of them encounter. Dawes came to hear that a friend told them that her grandfather had changed their family name upon migrating to the U.S., and it became a great shock for him. He was cornered and encountered by society but now it has changed, and the upcoming generation will struggle after coming across some people it is easy to survive and encounter hardship. Culture is a dominant theme in the novel and upbringing is a way of one’s identity. Identity crises are the rise of cultural differences. The novel also talks especially about the culture both of the cultures have been interpreted in the novel, they belong to one culture and live in various surroundings of culture.

Ashok belongs to the Indian Ancestry and follows the Indian culture, Gogol also follows the same but he wants to be bombarded by materialism, consumerism, and open-mindedness it was the characteristic of American society. He considers his parents’ homeland in India, he wishes not to return to India and not to associate with the traditions of India that many of his family members have adopted. Though his parents try to raise him as a Bengali, Gogol establishes that he is indeed an American. His choice was protested by his parents and family members. He decides to conform to their wishes to not deviate from Bengali customs.

This leads to much confusion. This situation is similar to the life story of Barack Obama, detailed in his autobiography Dreams from My Father, which Dawes had recently read. Being of European American and African ancestry, Obama struggles to find his place among the African and European Americans in the United States. He is never able to represent both cultures, which he most strongly embraces. Today there is an increasing demand to confirm their norms. Not everyone in the country is struggling only the immigrants who come to America are facing the obstacles. Those who come with the hopes of bettering their lives by adopting the social standards, of a family to achieve a sense of normalcy. Similarly, those of the growing community are strongly encouraged to identify themselves to keep within racial boundaries.

Others who are fighting for the basic citizenship to live are seen as ‘out of the ordinary.’ The Namesake focuses on name, culture, and inheritance as a way of establishing one’s identity. It also tells about how gender helps to define a person’s life. In the novel, Ashima revolves around her Children and family, she feels an emptiness within her, and the major stage of her life has come and gone. Her only purpose in her life is to take care of her children and husband.

She observes other women in her family from her childhood, such observations mold her as the primary caregiver. In the novel, the author states that Ashima is in labor with her first child. She has found her identity in life during her motherhood days. In the period of the novel, the women living in America have access to more educational opportunities and perform roles, women's activities home-making, and raising children are additions in the time. Ashima takes a traditional stance on the roles of wives in the home. Ashok is a person who expects tradition, Ashima is the same, who is busy with home-making and raising children.

Dawes shares his own experience that his mother (who does not work outside the home) dedicates much time to ‘taking care of the family,’ she is one of the most important experiences in womanhood. She has encouraged him and his sister to place great importance on this role, she found it to be rewarding and fulfilling. Ashok is the one who responsible for for well-being and happiness of his entire family. For instance, Ashima complaints she does not have the strength to raise a baby alone, she wishes to move away from her extended family. Ashok feels responsible for the heartache because he is the one who had taken her away from her family, where she had grown.

Similarly, in his family, his father is more emotional and considers himself responsible for financial and spiritual growth though his mother plays an important internal role in the issues. The family dynamics presented in The Namesake are similar to those in ‘Normal American Society.’ Hence the social mindset that grounds one’s identity is strongly supported. This is illustrated by examining the importance of one’s name as the definition of background and gender, which one’s destiny in life is dictated. The migrating people’s son finds it difficult to establish himself in society and hard to find his own identity. The never-ending search for identity has been an increasing issue for many in today’s society, particularly for those who migrated to another country.

Cultural identity is an indirect crucial theme in the novel. Identity is not only achieved through identification with a group of individuals, it is the basic definition for every identification many people use to convey, and it won’t end with defining. Many of them come to agree and understand that identity is the responsibility and the person, who are all having an identity is accountable. Many new identities are created, and the importance of society stresses people's performance in the process of identity formation. The formation of identity can be a long interiorizing process. Through the process, the personality changes into different conflicts that should be interpreted and processed by the individual. The development of individuals goes through three important contradictions of identity the level of personalization, the level of socialization, and the level of individualization is the reality that the community expects. Motivation is important for creating an identity and choosing role models and life style is accordance with them. Many of them agree that Self-esteem is a long learning process.

The importance of identity is a predominant theme in the novel. Ashoka gives more importance to a name and it plays an important role in his son’s life. At a young age, he meets a deadly accident he almost dies, he was traveling on a train during her travel he was reading a Russian author Gogol’s stories, the accident happened in a fraction of a second many people died and many of twere hem trapped in the compartment. A rescue team arrived to save the people who were all wounded. Ashoka was unable to call them, he was not able to stand and even he was not able to lift his hand. He had Gogol’s storybook page in his hand he lost her fingers and made the paper fall, it was the only thing he could do to rescue people who saw him and saved her life.

This is the major thing that makes the name important in Ashoka’s life it also changes as Identity. So he gave the name to his son but he didn’t know about the importance of his identity, so he started to hate it. Ashoka tries to expose the reason for his name and the incident that happened in his life but he is not ready to hear from his father. After some years he changed his name legally and started to live her life by his wish. He struggled a lot by facing many difficulties and came to understand the hard side of life after that he came to know the reason for his name by his father. Then he started to live life as her father wished, soon his father died and felt alone and he started to read the stories of Gogol stories and knows what he tried to express and why he gave importance to him.