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Personification
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
Setting in The Namesake serves primarily to juxtapose Bengali and American cultural practices and attitudes, along axes of class as well as ethnicity. Houses serve as a focal point for this juxtaposition in the novel, revealing information about the various identities of those who inhabit them.
Take, for instance, the Ganguli family home in Massachusetts. The house embodies every stereotype of American middle class life, representative of Ashoke and Ashima's attempts to assimilate. While the couple might prefer a home with more ties to Bengali culture or Calcutta, they choose to "perform" American middle class life for the sake of Gogol and Sonia, who desperately want to fit in. The children want a white picket fence and PB&J sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and their parents oblige.
Juxtapose the Ganguli's home in Massachusetts with their family house in Calcutta, or the houses of their relatives. Note the emphasis on space vs. the lack thereof—in the American house, every family member has their own bedroom, whereas in the Calcutta house, all four Ganguli family members would have slept in the same large four-poster bed. Life in Calcutta is less pristine, but also less isolating—a reality that Ashoke and Ashima relish, but that their children grate against.
Related Themes:
