The Namesake Meaning

968 Words4 Pages
Film Paper Assignment – The Namesake The Namesake is a film based on the novel of the same name, written by Jhumpa Lahiri released in 2006. The film illustrates the struggle of an Indian couple that moved to New York to start a new life away from their homeland. They give birth to 2 children, Nikhil “Gogol” Ganguli and Sonia Ganguli – one of the prim focuses is put on Gogol throughout the film. The movie takes us through Gogol’s cross-cultural life chronologically; stressing the struggles he goes through from growing up in a “foreign” land where his family’s practices are conflicting with the lifestyle there. We clearly see the difference of Indian and American cultures and the process of acculturation by the Ganguli’s. When Ashoke (the husband)…show more content…
I am not familiar with the Western perspective of how they name their children, but a name (at least from my understanding) has meaning and hope our parents have thought over so we would pursue to be of what our name labels us with. Our name is our identity and is the interconnecting knot to our history. Towards the second half of the film, Ashoke explains to Gogol the true meaning to his name by directly telling him and after his death through the book he gave for his graduation gift from high school. It said “For Gogol Ganguli, The man who gave you his name, from the man who gave you your name. ” representing the strong meaning to what a name is for yourself, and for the parents whom named you. Changing your name means different things in different cultures. As an example, in Japan it isn’t common for someone to actually do so, but if you decide to get your name changed, it is disrespectful to your parents and means denying the love and thought your parents gave in to…show more content…
Gogol’s girlfriend makes an appearance to the funeral where she is dressed “differently” than the others. In that scene, the woman right behind her stares at the attire Maxine was wearing in a sense of being appalled. I believe that in their culture, people don’t wear clothes that display their skin as much since it is considered provocative or disrespectful. Hence, Maxine wearing that dress was not really a good sign for the family. Another thing that came to me was the following scene with Maxine proposing to Gogol that she wanted to come with to India to scatter Ashoke’s ashes. Gogol declines her offer, telling her that it was a family thing, but Maxine tells him that she thought they were a ‘family’. At this point I thought there were two different vectors of the term “family” existing in both of them. A “hypothetical” family can be said to address a group of people who are deeply connected, but in Gogol’s case, his family is actual blood relatives where he couldn’t accept Maxine’s definition of being a “family”, leading to their breakup. Maxine’s understanding here illustrates the limitations of knowledge an outsider can achieve – etics, while I thought it was touching upon the concept of ethnocentrism, or in outdated terms, orientalism. This assumption is made from the factors of historical western superiority alongside with the slight ignorance shown from her actions explained
Open Document