Monday, January 23, 2017

Extra Credit Blog: The Namesake

In the film The Namesake, as Ashima and her husband Ashoke married and move to New York, she found herself lost in the new country and wants to go back to India. But then she gave birth to Gogol and her daughter, she decided to stay in New York for the future of her kids.


The film illustrates the process of adapting to a culture of both Ashima and Golgo. Ashima, who was born and raised in India, is very traditional, she wears sari everywhere she goes and just like any other Indian mother she wants Gogol “to marry an Indian girl” (Takaki 448), because to her only Indian girls can understand how important their customs are. Golgo is different from his mom in which he only wants to follow the American culture and not Indian culture. He wants to be an American boy so he changes his name to Nick, smokes with his friends, and dates a Caucasian girl. But the sudden death of Ashoke changed everything. Ashima thinks that she is too selfish because she didn’t go with her husband to take care of him so he passed away with a heart attack. The moment she opens the garage and runs away from home is when she decided to blend in with the American culture more, just like the moment when Mrs. Sen, who is also from India, “gave a signal and turned” (Lahiri 311). These women have done things that they never thought of before, they’re opening and adapting to the new culture they’re living in. After his dad passed away Golgo shaved off his hair and for the first he uses his parents’ native language to communicate with his mom. Golgo is no longer resisting the Indian traditions in his household where he was born and came from.  

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