Similar to their female counterparts, second-generation South Asian men are cultural navigators as well, shifting between their American and South Asian identities as they move from the domestic sphere to the public sphere. Men, however, are more liberated than women, or at least this is the case within Lahiri’s works. Therefore, in some aspects, men enjoy more freedom to choose their eventual careers and futures:
the greater number of Lahiri’s second-generation South Asian women hold careers in law or education, positions generally revered and deemed successful by traditional South Asians, whereas the men have more artistically based or less successful professions, such as being an architect, working on a film crew, or managing a small town Laundromat. The men, although free to choose what they want, often end up in positions less favorable than those achieved by the women counterparts. Gogol, the main protagonist of Lahiri’s novel The Namesake, is a good example. He corresponds as an example of multiple identities because he is born in America as a
second-generation South Asian to his parents, Ashima and Ashoke, two Bengali immigrants from Calcutta. His subjectivities include his second-generation status, his male gender, and his social roles as a son, older brother, stand-in father figure after his father’s death, husband, and ex-husband. Like previously mentioned,
second-generation men also exhibit a split between the identities they exhibit at home and in public. They will be influenced by their initial upbringing within a traditional South Asian household situated within American society, however, they will not be as pressured to adhere to tradition as their female counterparts. This may stem from either the prevailing traditional concept of male chauvinism common to Asian societies or the fact that first-generation South Asian parents do not find it necessary to rein in their sons because they assume they will take the right path in due time (e.g.
graduate from college with a medical, law, or engineering degree and land high-level
jobs within these fields). Upon discovering independence from their parents with learning how to drive and going off to college, these men realize that they can act according to American standards out of their parents’ sight, and they consequently break loose from their families in order to fully exercise their newly-found freedom.
Since they are not as behaviorally restricted within the household as women are, men are more prone to bringing their American halves into the domestic sphere, as
opposed to women having to keep a fairly clean split between what is acceptable within or outside the domestic sphere. In Lahiri’s stories, they usually gravitate more towards an Americanized identity, which in turn can affect their concepts of gender roles. Second-generation women are more likely to accept their ethnic ancestry, whereas men seem to shun or reject it, choosing to act more American rather than to retain their ethnic tradition. However, as in the case of Gogol, there are instances where second-generation men may encounter an upsetting event that jolts them into realizing that they, too, can choose to recognize and accept their South Asian heritage.
Instead of rejecting their South Asian background, they can choose to incorporate it with their American upbringing as well.
The Namesake mainly revolves around Gogol’s abhorrence of his given name,
Gogol. It is initially given to him only as a pet name, a name that only his family members and close friends will use to address him by; he will be given another name, a “good name,” for use in public. On his first day at kindergarten, however, despite his father’s insistence on registering him as “Nikhil Ganguli,” Gogol opposes the name-change when his father leaves, and henceforth he is known as Gogol. Even though he is adamant in his early years about not changing his name to Nikhil, in his teenage years he grows weary of the name Gogol, which seems to him a cruel joke played upon him by his parents, to name him after the surname of a famous author. As Gogol, the name he links to his South Asian heritage and his family, he becomesdisconnected from the American mainstream society: “Gogol does not date anyone in high school. … He does not attend dances or parties. He and his group of [three]
friends … prefer to listen to records together” (Namesake 93). He constantly feels like he is constrained by the name “Gogol,” because it marks him as different: people constantly ask him how to pronounce it, what it means “in Indian” (Namesake 76). He also attempts to change his name: “At times he wishes he could disguise it, shorten it somehow… [b]ut Gogol, already short and catchy, resists mutation” (Namesake 76).
The name Gogol distresses Gogol because it stands for everything that makes him distinct from Americans or the other second-generation South Asians, with names like Nikhil or Jayadev that can be shortened to Nick or Jay. This name forces him to abide to the traditional roles instilled in him by his parents, who urge him to join the math team, maintain an A average, and do not find it weird that their son has not started dating in high school nor has he gone to prom. Gogol himself cannot imagine him introducing himself as Gogol under potentially romantic circumstances (UE 76). So, in this sense, “Gogol” confines him to the roles that are alien to American standards.
He discovers at a university party that his other chosen name, Nikhil, bestows him with a new sense of freedom, and he boldly kisses a girl he meets for the first time: “[I]t hadn’t been Gogol who’d kissed Kim… Gogol had nothing to do with it”
(Namesake 96), The name “Nikhil” is emancipating, empowering, so much so that he rushes to get an official name change before he goes off to college. As Nikhil, he can now freely approach women and easily “ignore his parents, to tune out their concerns and pleas” (Namesake 105). Gogol associates his identity as Nikhil as his
Americanized identity, a name that does not set him apart from the crowd. He chooses to major in architecture, starts smoking, sneaks into clubs with fake IDs, and loses his virginity. To him, the names are two halves which share the same appearance,
“indistinguishable to the naked eye yet fundamentally different,” like Siamese twins
(Namesake 105). However, Gogol still believes that “Gogol” is his main identity, evidenced when he expresses fear in being “discovered,” as if “Nikhil” is a disguise he has to don rather than being just a name, a word. Therefore, to reinforce his identity as Nikhil, Gogol gradually distances himself from his home at Pemberton Road, where there the only people who still call him “Gogol” exist. By dissociating himself from his South Asian roots, Gogol finds that it gets increasingly easier for him to be accepted as someone more than just “Indian”: as Nikhil, he is even said to be capable of passing as Italian. Initially, he is delighted when his American girlfriend Maxine and her family comment on how different he is from his family and the other stereotypical images of South Asians. He revels in living under the same roof as an American family, eating the same food, taking part in and growing used to their everyday routine. During this period, he completely ignores his responsibilities as the eldest son in a South Asian family and turns his back on his mother and father, who routinely call his apartment only to get his answering machine. He prefers to spend his vacations with Maxine’s family in their spacious, elegant home, emulating their laid-back, indifferent attitude towards getting forward in life and the rest of the world.
Taking part in the Ratcliffs’ lives allows Gogol to experience being “truly” American because, as he is caught up within their way of living, he is able to forget his ethnic background and the burdens his family has assigned him.
However, when his father dies, Maxine only offers the slightest bit of condolence for his loss, then tries to convince him to “get away from all this” (Namesake 182).
“[T]his” could refer to the depressed tone spread amongst the surviving Gangulis, but it can also refer to the dull, cramped confines of the Ganguli house, surroundings that may be unpleasant or restricting to Maxine, who is used to a large, spacious, luminous environment. It could also refer to his ethnic background, which is a part of Gogol’s life that Maxine has never actively chosen to take a part in, which can be traced back
to Gogol’s reluctance to introduce her to his family and past (of which he is greatly ashamed) and Maxine’s comfort and ease with her own lifestyle. Her apathy towards Gogol’s loss prompts him to realize her disinterest with those directly unrelated to her, a trait that runs opposite to the conduct of the South Asian community, who care for each other regardless of whether or not they have been previous associated. In general, South Asian communities are tied together not in terms of blood but rather seek out connections through their country of origin. Despite lacking prior associations, South Asians will reach out and lend a hand to any other South Asian or anyone somewhat related to their people, either through marriage or friendship. It upsets Gogol to see that Maxine and her family are only concerned with Gogol and not his family, although it is his entire family that has lost their patriarch; she tries to take him away from his family in Cambridge, to the effect that distancing him from his family will grant him the ability to grow indifferent about his loss. In contrast to Maxine, the other South Asian friends and acquaintances flood the house, filling the space left behind by their father with their incessant questions and presence, not trying to take them away from their home but rather helping them to deal with and to get used to their loss. By comparison, Maxine and her family are too caught up living their own lives that they forget about the world and reality, disillusioned by their inattentiveness to the rest of the world. As opposed to such an isolated, exclusive life, he decides to return to the relatively boisterous community of South Asians, where any person’s business is everyone’s business, and where he is known to everyone as Gogol rather than Nikhil.
Gogol reverts back to a more conventional South Asian son, returning to his mother’s side on weekends, calling her every day. He also adopts his father’s role in helping his mother mow the lawn, entertain guests, and drives her around town. He is arranged to be married to Moushoumi, a second-generation South Asian introduced to
him by his mother. However, the marriage ends bitterly as Moushoumi admits an affair with another man; Gogol’s mother, Ashima, expresses her guilt for being so adamant in introducing the two to each other, for being partly responsible for her son’s status as a divorced man at thirty-two. She thinks it fortunate that they belong to the second generation rather than her own, because they do not “[consider] it their duty to stay married … That pressure has given way … to American common sense”
(Namesake 276). She celebrates the successful union of her daughter Sonia and Ben, her half-Jewish half-Chinese future son-in-law, whom Sonia met on her own, who she believes will bring happiness to her daughter. Ashima is conveying to the reader that adhering to tradition may not be the best direction to take, that perhaps being more accepting of other cultures and acting more American is the way to happiness and contentment.
Gogol, in distancing himself too far from his origins, has learned from his mistakes and also seems to believe in maintaining an identity that lies somewhere in between South Asian and American, taking pleasure in being part of a tightly bound community and family while also maintaining a solitary bachelor life out of his mother’s sights. He comes to the conclusion that Nikhil and Gogol are two parts of the same person, that they are not placed in contrast to each other nor is one a disguise for the other. However, he also realizes that Nikhil is his external personality, the one that will “live on, publicly celebrated,” and Gogol is “purposely hidden, legally diminished, now all but lost” (Namesake 290). Despite declaring Gogol to be “all but lost,” in an earlier monologue he cites the name Gogol and the subsequent
experiences he has as Gogol to be everything that forms, shapes, and determines who he is in the present (Namesake 287). His identity as Gogol, then, is not lost but rather lives on in his memories, is the portion of him that identifies as entirely South Asian and that surfaces only in front of his mother or sister, an identity that is subsumed
within his whole identity. His choice to use his Nikhil identity as his public entity does not mean he wishes to exhibit a simply Americanized identity. He uses the name
“Nikhil” because it is his legalized name and it also highlights his identity as a second-generation South Asian in the U.S. Gogol is a Russian name, a name derived from the surname of Gogol’s father’s favorite writer. Despite its Russian roots,
“Gogol” stands for Gogol’s South Asian identity because it signifies the consequences that brought about his existence. Gogol is named “Gogol” not only because of his father’s preference for the author, but also because it symbolizes the turning point of his father’s life: the crippling train wreck that paralyzed him for a year, his subsequent desire to leave India, to start anew and to experience life in another society. Gogol does share a similar background to Nikolai Gogol in that they both moved around much in their youth and lose their fathers at an early age. But how he came to
“become” his namesake is what is really important for the reading of The Namesake.
As in the story “The Overcoat,” how Akakay Akakievich Bashmachkin came to be named that name is not as imperative as what he does as Akakay—an impoverished clerk and copyist who is constantly ridiculed for the dilapidated condition of his overcoat, Akakay saves up enough money to buy an impressive, new overcoat.
However, after only wearing it out once to attend a party held in his overcoat’s honor, he is robbed of his coat and, after an unfruitful hunt, he dies delirious of a fever.
Gogol, then, is also misled by the belief that a more Americanized name can offer him a better future, which is proven in the long run to be a false impression. He believes that being Nikhil can obscure his ethnic background and automatically raise his status, just like the way how Akakay believes his overcoat can elevate his rank within the social hierarchy. Both come to realize, however, that the introduction of a new external article or label is not nearly enough to alter what they already are. Nikhil is his acquired identity, his “overcoat,” whereas Gogol is his innate identity.
Second-generation South Asian men display a similar division to the split observed in their female counterparts between their public and private identities, although it can be said that men are not as restricted as women in keeping their public, more liberal identities out of the household. This may be because of their relative lack of behavioral limitations, e.g. they are not expected to familiarize themselves with South Asian tradition and culture nor are they expected to transfer this information on to the next generation, unlike women. Rather, men are expected to marry a decent woman (preferably South Asian) and to obtain a high-level professional job within the engineering or medical sciences. However, second-generation men may feel like they are under too much pressure from the first-generation to succeed or to achieve the goals they have set forth so the men rebel against their parents. These men are more likely to choose to run away and distance themselves from their family; this may be because they are still under the influence of South Asian tradition which asserts patriarchy. Therefore, these men, being averse to direct, face-to-face confrontations with their fathers, choose to leave their home as a more passive form of rebellion. An interesting difference detected between second-generation men and women is that oftentimes women adhere to tradition to ensure they will be set free in the future, whereas men, given relatively more freedom to choose as they wish, defy traditional South Asian culture as a result of their own individual desires.
Conclusion
From the above discussions on the effects of multiple identities on gender roles, it is evident that the belief in a preset archetype existing for members of each gender from either generation is obsolete and outdated. First-generation women, being more prone to separating themselves from American society by largely staying within the confines of their house, will show less variance in multiple identities. Only those
women who dare to cross the threshold, to step out of the house and to interact with Americans, who number in the few, will have a chance at developing their multiple identities. Mrs. Sen encounters a traumatic car crash that most likely symbolizes the inevitable culture shock and conflict she must encounter when adapting to a new environment, and is, unfortunately, too unprepared to deal with the shock. She retreats to the bedroom of her house and may possibly never dare set foot out of her house alone again. In her case, she will not be able to form a complete version of multiple identities because of her lack of interaction with American culture. She will retain mostly South Asian elements. First-generation men are more prone to developing positive instances of multiple identities that work within American society. Ruma’s father comes to accept several American concepts, integrating them within his own traditionally South Asian identity. Second-generation women, display comparatively more complex constructions of multiple identities, which is most likely due to their bi-cultural upbringing. Their identities can range from anywhere to extremely South Asian to extremely American, and these identities can alter significantly with their positioning either within or outside the domestic sphere. Most women tend to display more Indian qualities inside the house, but once in the public sphere they act more American. Nevertheless there is not a distinct split between their South Asian or American identities and either may affect the other in either public or private settings.
women who dare to cross the threshold, to step out of the house and to interact with Americans, who number in the few, will have a chance at developing their multiple identities. Mrs. Sen encounters a traumatic car crash that most likely symbolizes the inevitable culture shock and conflict she must encounter when adapting to a new environment, and is, unfortunately, too unprepared to deal with the shock. She retreats to the bedroom of her house and may possibly never dare set foot out of her house alone again. In her case, she will not be able to form a complete version of multiple identities because of her lack of interaction with American culture. She will retain mostly South Asian elements. First-generation men are more prone to developing positive instances of multiple identities that work within American society. Ruma’s father comes to accept several American concepts, integrating them within his own traditionally South Asian identity. Second-generation women, display comparatively more complex constructions of multiple identities, which is most likely due to their bi-cultural upbringing. Their identities can range from anywhere to extremely South Asian to extremely American, and these identities can alter significantly with their positioning either within or outside the domestic sphere. Most women tend to display more Indian qualities inside the house, but once in the public sphere they act more American. Nevertheless there is not a distinct split between their South Asian or American identities and either may affect the other in either public or private settings.