Reminders:
Sign your post with a name I will recognize as yours. If I don't know it's you, I can't give you credit.
Posting late is WAY better than not posting at all. Get on it. This is 10% of your grade.
Remind your friends, please.
If you delete your post, I can't read it and therefore can't give you credit.
Now, to the good stuff. Yes, The Namesake is longer than Fahrenheit 451. It's also less complicated and abstract. I read it on a 3 hour plane flight. No excuses.
Choose 1 (just one) of the following questions to answer:
1. Why did Ashoke choose to name his son Gogol? What significance does this name have for him, and how is that related to his son?
2. Discuss the symbolism of the grandmother's letter with the names getting lost, her death, and how both of these thing affect Ashima.
3. What is the significance of Sonia's name and how it evolved?
4. Symbolically, what is the significance of a pet name vs. a good name? What does it mean that Gogol only has one?
5. Explain the symbolism of the scene in the graveyard that helps Gogol finally make peace with his name.
1. There is a reason for everything in life. In the namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, the two main characters Ashoke and Ashima, who are couples decided to name their son Gogol. There are certain reasons behind this decision.
ReplyDeleteThe first reason would be because they did not have a choice. When Ashima gave birth to their child. She and her husband Ashoke, were forced to give their child a name because that was the protocol of the hospital in order to be given a birth certificate.
The second reason was because of a personal incident that occured in Ashoke's life when he was younger. Ashoke had been in a car accident in which Gogol had been the paper he was reading when the accident occured. it also saved his life because it had caught the medics attention, allowing him to be rescued.
Therefore, Ashoke and Ashima naming their son Gogol proves that everything happens for a reason.
The letter that Ashima’s grandma sends but get lost is so important because that letter contains names for Ashima’s child but it is not just a name it is the identity of the child. The letter contains the traditions that are meant to be followed and continued. The naming of a child is a good name, the real name, and then a pet name, a nickname, that is the tradition but behind that is the way that life that is lived and they should live, the Ganguils and generations before them, everything they know is that to follow those traditions. When the letter gets lost and Gogol is going to be released from the hospital they tell her that she has to name Gogol but her husband and her “can’t possible name [Gogol] themselves”(27) they know only to allow their elders to give the name to their children that they have no “backup,” to “Ashima and Ashoke…it had never occurred to either of them to question Ashima’s grandmother’s selection, [ they would not ] disregard an elder’s wishes in such a way” (28). They know only to follow traditions that is why they do not know how to take the decision to name their child they are lost without that letter and the guide of her grandma to show her to tell her what she has to do next. The death of her grandma those are the scared traditions disappear into thoughts that are unreachable. The letter was the last connection to the world that Gogol’s parents left behind and their children to adopt it and continue it but with it lost and the grandma’s death that connection has disappeared only in thoughts that could have keep the parents in touch with their roots and their children keep in mind where they are descendants from.
ReplyDelete1. the reason why ashkoe decides to give his son that name is because its the name of his favorite author and because when he was on a train he was reading a book called Gogol and thw second reason is like the first person said was he was in a accident on that train so it means a lot to him for his son to have that name. the importance of the name for the son is that he was going to almost die and his son got to carry on that name
ReplyDelete1. There is a reason for everything in life. In the namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, the two main characters Ashoke and Ashima, who are couples decided to name their son Gogol. There are certain reasons behind this decision.
ReplyDeleteThe first reason would be because they did not have a choice. In the Hospital that Gogol was born it the protocol of the hospital that "a baby cannot be relaesed from the hospital without a birth cerificate. and the certificate needs a name (pg. 27). Therefore Ashoke and Ashima were forced to name thier child
The second reason was because of a personal incident that occured in Ashoke's life when he was younger. Ashoke had been in a car accident in which Gogol had been the paper he was reading when the accident occured. it also saved his life because it had caught the medics attention, allowing him to be rescued.
Therefore, Ashoke and Ashima naming their son Gogol proves that everything happens for a reason.
The reason why Ashoke named his son Gogol is because it was his favorite character from the book his grandfather have given him and he believes that him reading that book the day of the train crash might of saved his life. Also he never recevied a letter in the mail by the grandmother of his child so he was pressed for time so he named him Gogol
ReplyDelete