The Namesake-Week 7 Post A (aka second to last blog ever)

It has been a long journey from the beginning of "The Namesake" until its very end.  From before Gogol was born until the time he is a grown man, we see the never ending cultural differences and changes throughout the novel. As Gogol moves out of his awkward teenage stages, he grows into a young man living in the halls of Yale university. A major cultural occurrence/change that happens is Gogol changing his name legally from "Gogol" to "Nikhil." Although a simple name change may not seem truly significant, but in Gogol's case, it is very much so. After many years, feeling as though he has been suffering with his birth-given name, he decides to have it taken care of. At first his parents are somewhat shocked at the fact that he wants to change his name, but at the same time they feel that it is his own decision to make. Their equanimity on the situation is not a likely response from a family where tradition is taken very seriously. This further proves their acceptance and ease into American culture. As the novel continued, the obvious cultural differences faded and became more obvious that they began to adapt to American culture, quite a lot. Other examples of differences in culture are when the Ganguli's went back to Calcutta for the umpteenth time. While they were there Gogol felt very out of place there, and did not like it at all. In Calcutta he had to share one bedroom and one dresser with his four person family. Also, he had to share a whole house with a pretty good portion of his extended family, and moved from house to house throughout the duration of the trip. Whereas in his house on Pemberton road, MA , he had a bedroom, dresser, and stayed in one place. Gogol is really becoming an all american boy, except with the background of a Bengali.