The Namesake is one of the most famous novels of Indian English Literature written by Jhumpa Lahiri. It can be read as Diaspora literature.

1. SHREE UMIYA MAHILA ARTS&COMMERCE
COLLEGE, LATHIDAD
Enrollment No. 3129200120160009
Roll No.10
Paper No.18 A Study of Indian Writing in English-2
Topic. “Namesake” as a Diasporic novel
Ruchi Joshi

2. That arises from
the dispersion of a
particular group
of people beyond
their traditional
homeland or
point of origin
Diasporic Literature is
a very vast concept
and an umbrella term
that includes in it all
those literary works
written by the authors
outside their native
country, but these
works are associated
with native culture
and background.

3. Diasporic writing
deals with…..
•Alienation
•displacement
•existential rootless
•quest of identity
•disintegration of cultures
•Cultural identity
•Multiculturalism

4. • written by Indian-
American
author Jhumpa Lahiri
•daughter of
Bengali immigrants from
the
state of West Bengal
•her works explores the
Indian
immigrants experience in
America
“You will not regret it.
One day it will be too late.”
Jhumpa Lahiri

5. How can one say that, “Namesake” is
Diasporic Literature ?
vividly depicted Gauguli family’s immigrate to
American.
Alienation and self-identity are main lines
depict the issue of multiculturalism and its influence
on the person's identity very beautifully and utterly.
alienation,
being a stranger in a foreign land
isolation from a group or an activity to which one
should belong or in which one should be involved.
Main character Ashima’s feeling of isolated is
prominent throughout the novel.
Rcism

6. Theme of Alienation
stranger in a foreign land
Every character suffers from
alienation.........
Two characters
feel constantly
uncomfortable and
homesickness
(1)Gogol
(2)Ashima

7. “I don’t want to raise Gogol alone in
this country. It’s not right. I want to go
back.”
He tries to put a wall
between his past
and his present but
it is not easy.

8. Ashima was suffering the isolated from the first
day of her journey to American, after and before
the end of her husband’s death.
“I want to go back.”

9. Ashima’s homesickness is a
major source of unhappiness.
Beside cooking and cleaning and
take care to their children, she
has nothing to do at home, she
has no friends. And she doesn’t
even wants rise her baby at the
country. She feels the distant and
doesn’t fit in American.
Deals with swinging between the memory of
homeland and the new
From the last
chapter of the book
shows that she was
taking a shower
before the party,
suddenly she feels
lonely, horribly,
permanently alone

10. Language and cultures
are transformed as they
come into contact with
other languages and
cultures.
Diaspora encounter cultural conflicts when they have to leave their cultural values and practice the new one
Ashoke &Ashima
•try to create a small Bengal clutching to
their roots and culture in America far from
the land of their birth and struggling for
an identity in the land of opportunities
and riches.
•they speak in Bengali and eat only
Bengali dishes with their hands.
Gogol
cannot shape his identity
because of the fact that he is kind of torn
apart between the two cultures.
Difficulty between two culture

11. Difficulty of both’s generation
*immigrant parents & their children*
two generations different alienation
(1)first generation-Ashoke and Ashima
and second generation their children
Gogol and Sonia.
(2)next generations were born to
immigrant parents, they enjoy their
settlement in that land but “their sense of
identity borne from living insecond
generation Diaspora, Gogol and Sonia,
identity problems are rather different, for
they have a sense of pride and affinity
with India, but it is America that is
perceived as ‘home’.
shared different idea of alienation.
attitudes, outlooks and way of living of two
generations in dealing with the problems in a
foreign country.

12. Quest of identity
So who are they, Indians
or Americans?
issue of the
self-identity
“the name” as
the way to
discover
Gogol’s true
self.
Changing his
name is also
a way shield
himself from
his own
culture,
family and
past.
belongs to the second generation of
Indian Diaspora whose ongoing quest for
identity never seems to end.

13. Other aspects
Displacement Language Barrier

14. The title itself “Namesake”
As identity becomes the
core issue, the names
become quite significant.
The adoption of „Nikhil‟ is a
part to live only in the
present, but the ghost of
Gogol clings to him that he
signs his old name
unconsciously
The problem of Gogol‟s name
symbolizes the problem of his
identity.
“No one he knows in the
world. Not even the source
of his namesake.”