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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Authors and Gods:
In Chapter 1, Lahiri alludes to both Marx and Gogol, using the writers as a framework upon which to base Ashoke's characterization. He is an atheist, contrary to Bengali tradition, and reveres Western writers more than he does religious figures. In the following passage, Lahiri uses metaphor to unpack Ashoke's worldview:
[Ashoke] does not thank God; he openly reveres Marx and quietly refuses religion. But there is one more dead soul he has to thank. [...] Instead of thanking God he thanks Gogol, the Russian writer who saved his life, when Patty enters the waiting room.
Employing indirect metaphor, Lahiri compares writers and ideologues to gods (through the eyes of Ashoke). Ashoke maintains some of his Bengali cultural ties after moving to America, but religion is not one of them. He reveres Marx, Gogol, and other Western intellectuals as replacement "gods" for the divine ones that no longer resonate with him. It is perhaps this religious reverence for Western intellectualism that leads Ashoke to move to America, to pursue a career as an American professor—even to encourage Gogol along a similar path. While Ashoke undoubtedly values Bengali culture, he is not a traditionalist, nor does he push Gogol to be. The phrase "dead soul" in the above passage is also an allusion to Nikolai Gogol's 1842 novel Dead Souls.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Born Again:
In a flashback in Chapter 1, Ashoke reveals that he narrowly survived death as a young man in India, riding a train that derailed. One of the only survivors of the incident, Ashoke approaches this tragedy as one would a new lease on life. Inspired by Ghosh, the man on the train who told him to travel and see more of the world, Ashoke pursues an engineering degree in America. In a passage from Chapter 1, the narrator uses metaphor to characterize Ashoke's changed outlook on life:
None of this was supposed to happen. But no, [Ashoke] had survived it. He was born twice in India, and then a third time, in America. Three lives by thirty.
In this excerpt, the narrator compares various important events or turning points in Ashoke's life to "births." According to Ashoke himself, he has been born a total of three times: the first, his biological birth; the second, his train accident; and the third, his move to America. Each of these non-biological births has been as significant in Ashoke's life as his biological birth—hence the metaphor. A mental or intellectual "birth" can often be just as important as the physical act, pushing a person to make significant life changes.
Related Themes:
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Aging:
In Chapter 3, Ashoke and Ashima receive letter after letter, each informing them that another family member in Calcutta has died. Though these letters are spread out over the course of several years, time does not lessen the tragedy. By the end of the novel, the Bengali couple lose far too many loved ones to count, many of whom they cannot properly mourn or bury. In the following passage, Lahiri explores this grief through indirect metaphor:
In some senses Ashoke and Ashima live the lives of the extremely aged, those for whom everyone they once knew and loved is lost, those who survive and are consoled by memory alone. Even those family members who continue to live seem dead somehow, always invisible, impossible to touch.
As a person ages, friends and family members gradually die off, at times leaving elderly people isolated and alone. The deaths of their relatives in Calcutta, combined with the isolation of living in a foreign country, produces a similar loneliness in Ashoke and Ashima. The couple is far too young to experience death on such a scale, yet be so tragically removed from it, forced to live on with no proper resolution. While their exact experience does not entirely map onto the experiences of the elderly, mourning in isolation is something the elderly, Ashoke, and Ashima all contend with.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Lifelong Pregnancy:
During Chapter 3, Ashima begins to contend with her own foreignness and feelings of alienation within American culture. Throughout The Namesake, Ashima never truly makes the effort to assimilate, maintaining a tight hold on her cultural, social, and familial ties to Bangladesh. In the following excerpt from Chapter 3, Lahiri explores Ashima's alienation in detail, utilizing metaphor as a figurative vessel to do so:
For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy – a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.
Ashima compares her experience as an immigrant living in America to that of pregnancy—in her own words, both are a "perpetual wait" and "constant burden" of feeling different or abnormal. Ashima's feelings of alienation are magnified by her pregnancy, during which she longs in vain for the comforts of home, family, and Bengali culture that America cannot provide.
Related Themes:
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—B-Sides:
Throughout the novel, naming represents an individual connection to shared community identity. In the following passage from Chapter 4, Lahiri uses an indirect metaphor to explore the connection between naming and identity, noting that for Gogol, the lack of a second name is more than just a holdover from his childhood decision to forgo "Nikhil":
He could have been Gogol only fifty percent of the time. Like his parents when they went to Calcutta, he could have had an alternative identity, a B-side to the self.
As a teenager, Gogol has grown to detest his name, which he feels makes him an object of ridicule. He wishes he "could have an alternative identity," something other than Gogol, a "B-side to the self." Here, Lahiri uses metaphor to indirectly compare Gogol's identity to a vinyl record (specifically a single record—when artists used to put out hit singles, every single inevitably had a "B-side" song, usually less popular than the A-side hit). Gogol wishes that, like a vinyl record, he could turn himself over and "play" an entirely new character.
Gogol lacks a second name because of a decision he made as a child. He chose to reject his parents' cultural traditions—alienating himself from the name "Nikhil"—in the hopes of fitting in with the other American kids at school. Unfortunately, as he grows older, Gogol also begins to feel alienated from the name "Gogol," to which he lacks any cultural or sentimental connection. Gogol's resistance to naming is both a symptom and cause of his feelings of alienation.
Related Themes:
Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Fishbowl:
In the following passage from Chapter 10, Lahiri utilizes metaphor to juxtapose Gogol's past relationships with his relationship with Moushumi. Instantly, the difference is stark and apparent—no hiding, no clandestine meetings, no parental awkwardness:
After years of clandestine relationships, it felt refreshing to court in a fishbowl, to have the support of her parents from the very start, the inevitability of an unquestioned future, of marriage, drawing them along.
Gogol and Moushumi's dating situation is compared to a "fishbowl"—the two finally have complete transparency with their families about their dating life and romantic relationship. There is nothing to hide this time, since both Gogol and Moushumi's families are Bengali.
Complete transparency, while freeing, can also be stifling. Fish can see out of their fishbowl, but they are also trapped within and cannot hide from voyeuristic eyes that wish to peer inside at them. Gogol and Moushumi may feel a momentary sense of freedom from dating within the Bengali-American immigrant pool, but over time, this transparency makes their relationship deteriorate. They resent one another for it. Gogol and Moushumi cannot escape from their parents' expectations, a truth made all the more upsetting to the independent young couple by the fact that they willingly embraced such circumstances to start with.
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