Gogol Ganguli’s Diasporic Identity as a Participative Self
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This essay explores the process of Jhumpa Lahiri’s protagonist Gogol Ganguli’s identity formation in The Namesake by using M. M. Bakhtin’s concept of the “participative self.” In accordance with Bakhtin’s argument, all human beings have no choice but to be participative in their reality because they are drawn to certain emotional-volitional moments—I, the other, and I-for-the-other—, and be in relation with others as long as they live. And in order for a novel to be a “fair” copy, it must not only contain detailed descriptions of the hero’s inner “I” actively interacting with others, but its content has to also become something historical and cultural. Nevertheless, by intervening in almost all moments of Gogol’s life and very often telling his story like her own, Lahiri fails to smoothly narrate all the processes of achieving his hero’s multicultural identity. In this novel, she characterizes Gogol as extremely passive and vulnerable, which causes him to look like a diffident and passive participant in his life. Therefore, Lahiri’s narrative failure results from Gogol’s lack of participation. From start to finish Gogol is portrayed as an inexplicably maladjusted person who can’t digest “awkward truths” in the Indian community, and can’t accept American culture actively. Methodologically, in The Namesake, there are many narratives about “myself” I see, “I” others observe, and “others” I perceive but there are also too frequently severance and omission of narration, which consequentially decreases the persuasiveness.
Abstract
This essay explores the process of Jhumpa Lahiri’s protagonist Gogol Ganguli’s identity formation in The Namesake by using M. M. Bakhtin’s concept of the “participative self.” In accordance with Bakhtin’s argument, all human beings have no choice but to be participative in their reality because they are drawn to certain emotional-volitional moments—I, the other, and I-for-the-other—, and be in relation with others as long as they live. And in order for a novel to be a “fair” copy, it must not only contain detailed descriptions of the hero’s inner “I” actively interacting with others, but its content has to also become something historical and cultural. Nevertheless, by intervening in almost all moments of Gogol’s life and very often telling his story like her own, Lahiri fails to smoothly narrate all the processes of achieving his hero’s multicultural identity. In this novel, she characterizes Gogol as extremely passive and vulnerable, which causes him to look like a diffident and passive participant in his life. Therefore, Lahiri’s narrative failure results from Gogol’s lack of participation. From start to finish Gogol is portrayed as an inexplicably maladjusted person who can’t digest “awkward truths” in the Indian community, and can’t accept American culture actively. Methodologically, in The Namesake, there are many narratives about “myself” I see, “I” others observe, and “others” I perceive but there are also too frequently severance and omission of narration, which consequentially decreases the persuasiveness.
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