The Namesake' Theme Essay

The United States is home to people belonging to diverse cultural backgrounds. According to Pew Research Center in 2017 around 44.4 million immigrants live in the United States who came with hopes of securing a better life for themselves and their future generations. The idea of a better, prosperous life in the Western world forces people to sometimes risk their lives; many die on the way to the charmed lands; however many eventually make it to the land of their dreams. Sadly for many, the aftermath of the colonial era leaves a profound mark on their sense of identity and belonging once they settle down on foreign shores. Postcolonialism aims to describe the ideas surrounding the “others”; Frantz Fanon in his noted work on the postcolonial thought describes that otherness is simply just an oppositional relationship of “us” versus “them”. “Us” being the colonizer and “them” being the colonized. It is because of colonialism, “Fanon asserts that both the colonized (e.g., the Other – that is, any person defined as “different form”) and the colonizer suffer “psychic warping”, oftentimes causing what Fanon describes as “a collapse of the ego”…the colonized either accepted or were coerced into accepting the collective consciousness of the French, thereby identifying blackness with evil and sin and whiteness with purity and righteousness” (“Postcolonialism”). Literature and film can be a great way to demonstrate these opposing forces of black versus white, legal versus illegal, and colonizer versus colonized. Postcolonial literature such as Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and films including Dirty Pretty Things strive to describe the stigmatization and never-ending quest of migrants and asylum seekers to assimilate, find a home, and become a part of the foreign culture.

Directed by Stephen Frears (2002) Dirty Pretty Things is fascinating in its approach to describing the difficulties the “others” face in their journey of assimilation. Set in the substratum of London, the film focuses its attention on the immigrant body and how it is exploited by the European capitalist agenda. Even the title of the film, Dirty Pretty Things brings to light a picture of prohibited yet alluring practices of using the migrant body – the “other” body – as an inventory of organs for the colonial whites needing spare body parts. The “others” serve just that function of being “donors” – if they die, someone else comes along and the supply chain continues unhindered, whether it be a bellhop at a hotel or an average taxi driver. There is no loss whatsoever of “us” the colonial whites. This mentality is aptly explained in this high-angle shot towards the end of the film:

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THE DOCTOR. “How come that I’ve never seen you people before?”

OKWE. “Because we are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your

cabs. We clean your rooms” (Dirty Pretty Things).

The film, sometimes through romantic motifs and sometimes in the form of a crime thriller, depicts how the migrant's struggle for a better life does not end even when they reach the land of their dreams. Frear shows how illegal immigrants, no matter how educated they are, always remain within the confines of the labor market and are treated as the “others”. As a close friend of one of the film’s main protagonists, Guo Yi cautions “You’re an illegal, Okwe. You are nothing” (Dirty Pretty Things). The immigrants are treated as invisible bodies by the unthankful hosts of London; no matter how much the immigrants try – even if they put their lives on the line – the hosts do not appreciate or feel thankful for the immigrants for being there to help them out.

Okwe and Senay are the lead protagonists of the film. They have fled their home countries – Nigeria and Turkey – to carve new identities for themselves in the promised land (London), only to realize that all promises of a land of pure, where there are no worries for the poor and where one earns what he works for, were pure fantasy. Never did they dream that one day they would have to agree to sell their body parts to gain freedom from the hell-like existence in the land of dreams. In one dimly-shot scene, Senay — against her morals — is forced to perform oral sex on the owner of the sweatshop she is employed by in fear of being reported to immigration. Eventually, she fights back. Better yet, she “bites” back. “He said he would report me. Today I bit. Today I bit” (Dirty Pretty Things) Senay exclaims to Okwe, taking in her victory. In all, The sinister economy of the underworld depicted in the film encompasses a marketplace of the buying and selling of migrant body parts and sexual assault as a result of blackmail. Any notion of “home” or even a respectable existence for the “other” is seen as impossible.

Frears’ film is an excellent critique of glaring contrasts of oppositional forces on display in the modern capitalist society at various levels; contrasts that pitch rich against poor, dark against the white, legal versus illegal, and ugly against beautiful. The London of the rich, white, and the legal, the “us”, is depicted as a beautiful city with palaces, restaurants, and parks. However, the London of the poor, the “others” is depicted as a dirty city where those with no money in their pockets live out of the glaring eyes of the world outside. “Love? For you and I, there is only survival. It is time you woke up from your stupid dream” (Dirty Pretty Things). It is this sense of “otherness” of “us” versus “them” that is one of the main ideas presented in the film, which paints a picture of a life far different from those who seek asylum on foreign shores.

Like Okwe and Senay, the lead protagonists of Lahiri’s, ‘The Namesake’ also go through the same feelings of dislocation, not belonging, and unhomeliness. The Namesake, more than anything else, is about Gogol’s (the narrator of the novel) journey of rediscovery and to establish his identity in a foreign land. Lahiri skillfully sketches the intricacies surrounding naming one’s child in Bengali society; and how children are named by the elders in the family after much consideration. However, in the case of the narrator, his grandmother’s letter containing his official name never arrives and his pet name then becomes his official name.

Gogol’s name and the confusion surrounding it is one of the main themes of the novel; it is described as an important part of Gogol’s quest for finding his true identity and dealing with his feelings of unhomeliness. Lahiri masterfully gives words to Gogol’s confusion about his name, “Not only does Gogol Ganguli have a pet name turned good name, but a last name turned first name. And so it occurs to him that no one he knows in the world, in Russia or India or America or anywhere, shares his name. Not even the source of his namesake” (78). Gogol believes since no one in the world shares his name he cannot identify and fit in with anyone. He feels disconnected from the entire world. His refusal to accept who he is partly stems from his refusal to accept his name which ultimately causes him to hate himself.

Lahiri describes how the postcolonial identity crisis inflicts the lives of immigrant children. Gogol and Sonia, born to immigrant parents – who could not, no matter how much they tried or wanted to, cut off themselves from their true roots – were torn between two cultures. Double Consciousness was a term coined by Du Bois in 1903, which described as feeling as though one’s identity is divided into several parts, making it feel as if one does not have a true identity. This concept is thoroughly portrayed in Lahiri’s novel, as “Gogol frowns, and his lower lip trembles. Only then, forced at six months to confront his destiny, does he begin to cry” (71). Gogol is not ready to confront his destiny, and The Namesake makes the reader question if he ever will be. In America the Ganguli family is seen as the Asians, “the others” whereas when they went back to India wearing shiny sneakers and backpacks they were still seen as “outsiders” by the locals (the “us”). The children experienced a cultural shock when they first visited India, their parent’s birthplace. When they came back to America they felt, “disconnected by the space, by the uncompromising silence that surrounds them. They still feel somehow in transit” (83).

Gogol’s problems with his name and his quest for carving a new identity for himself continue as he changes his name to ‘Nick’; however, this effort proves futile as he feels he cannot fit in American society even after changing his name which leads the author to conclude that, “He had tried to correct that randomness, that error. And yet it had not been possible to reinvent himself fully, to break from that mismatched name” (287).

Themes of alienation, double consciousness, unhomeliness, and the quest for assimilation are apparent in the novel. By describing Bengali food, traditions, and rituals; Lahiri weaves a description of a culture that Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli – Gogol’s parents – left ages ago but that remains alive, at least in their hearts, just like that of the 44.4 million immigrants in the United States today. Gogol’s sense of discomfort with his name could be an analogy for multiple dislocations immigrant families have to go through which sometimes erases their entire sense of being as well as creates various social, cultural, and historical barriers for them.

Stephen Frears’s film Dirty Pretty Things and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake signify the postcolonial experiences of immigrants and their children. The quest to find meaning in life, the search to find one’s true identity and sole purpose is apparent in both the works, whether it is Okwe’s and Senay’s journey to carve a name for themselves or Gogol’s mission of finding his identity. Gogol’s discomfort with his name is the most important part of Lahiri’s novel. It helps the reader understand why he faces trouble fitting in, whether it be in his parent’s country of birth or fitting in the world his friends seem to inhabit so easily. What then emerges is that both these works describe the protagonists’ quest to find hospitable spaces in an alien land and to attach a meaning to their existence. Sometimes this quest ends with the acknowledgment that one’s true identity can only be established by returning to one birthplace where one is honored and respected – as in the case of Okwe and Senay and sometimes this journey ends with an acceptance of the place where one belongs to and where one lives in – as in the case of Gogol.