The Namesake

Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, follows the Ganguli family through their transition into the American life. Ashoke Ganguli, after suffering in a train accident that should have ended his life, married Ashima and moved to the United States. After living in Boston for nine months Ashima finds out she is pregnant. Another nine months later and her first child, a son, is born. The Gangulis were waiting for a letter from Ashima’s grandmother in order to name the baby, but they could not be released from the hospital without a name on the birth certificate so they give him the name Gogol, a pet name until they can think of a good name for him. This name becomes all that he hates about himself and eventually decides to change it, though he doesn’t know the true reason he was given the name; a book by Nikolai Gogol had saved Ashoke’s life after the train accident.

Throughout the book Gogol struggles with self-identity; he loves his parents and their background, but he’s an American and he doesn’t understand why they make him suffer through their old traditions. He doesn’t feel connected to the traditions that his parents continue to perform, he didn’t grow up near his real extended family and only adopted the friends his parents had made as his honorary aunts and uncles. So everything he experienced was second hand and he disliked when his parents made him accountable to their traditions.

He felt like his life was surrounded by accidents, mishaps, which should never have happened; all starting with the day that his father survived the train accident in India. That led to his limp and his desire to move as far as possible from where his family’s life was, and that led to his life in America. The letter with his real name was lost in the mail, an accident that led his parents to name him Gogol, the name that he despised. “He had tried to correct that randomness, that error. And yet it had not been possible to reinvent himself fully, to break from that mismatched name” (pg. 287). He then had different relations with women to try and become a different person, to break away from who his parents wanted him to become. Then his father died, “that had been the worst accident of all.” And yet, all of these accidents and events formed Gogol, “shaped him, and determined who he is” (pg. 287).

We all endure things in life that we may want to go back and change, to see how our life would be different after a certain accident was fixed. Sometimes things happen that we can’t even comprehend, and those things we wish to forget; to erase from our memories altogether. Gogol surely experienced the desire to change things when his father died. He regretted changing his name from Gogol, even though the name caused him pain when he was younger, it was the only thing left connecting him to his father, and he didn’t have it anymore. These things in life that maybe should never have happened, they “seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end” (pg. 287). Those little things in life that seem wrong and difficult to understand are often the things, or accidents that define who we are. 

Following the New World

“America, America, blasphemous dream. Giving so much, why could it not give everything?” Lucia Santa pondered in Mario Puzo’s novel The Fortunate Pilgrim. Lucia Santa Angeluzzi-Corbo was an immigrant to the United States from Italy. She escaped her village and married an Italian man living in America. She ran from Italy in order to live a better life, one that could not have possibly been offered a poor woman in Italy. But she, like many other immigrants that we have and will read about, wished to achieve the dream while still living like she was in Italy. America offered so much, and by sticking with the old ways Lucia Santa was unable to grasp those American dreams. She asks: “Why could it [America] not give everything?”  But the answer lies simply in the fact that she refused to change as her life and circumstances changed around her. This attitude is not limited just to the Fortunate Pilgrim, but it can also be seen in both of the other books we have read this semester; Bread Givers and War Trash.

In Bread Givers, by Anzia Yezierska, the story is centered on the Smolinksy family who emigrated from Russia to New York. The father, Reb Smolinsky, was a student of the Torah in Russia and for that he was well respected. His family was able to get good jobs to help support him in his studies so he never had to work. Then they moved to America because Reb had lost all their belongings as a salesman and decided to move where he thought things cost nothing at all (Pg. 34). But all that awaited him in America was more poverty. He moved with the belief that he could continue in his studies while his family worked to support him, just as he had done in Russia. And although his daughters may not agree with his way of doing things, they know nothing else and must respect him.

Bessie, the eldest daughter, is the “burden bearer” of the family and she always does what is expected of her; including giving all her earned wages to her father so he can continue to sit and do nothing. Fania and Mashah also must live according to what their father bids them to do. When they all eventually start having love interests the father drives out every single one who loves them, only to replace those good men with men who are crooks and liars all because of his pride and desire to stick with the old world way of doing things. The three elder daughters are unhappy in the lives their father picked for them but they can say nothing. Sara, the youngest daughter, observes all that happens in her home and decides that she does not want to suffer at the hands of her father the way her sisters did. So she sets out to make herself “a person among people” and she changes to the American lifestyle and crawls her way out of the dirt she grew up in, to become a teacher. She was the only one in her family to rise above the poverty because she realized that in order to fulfill the dream, one must work to fulfill it.

In War Trash, by Ha Jin, the main character, Yu Yuan, is a POW in South Korean prison camps. Although his story is not one of an immigrant to the United States, he also goes through certain trials in which he must decide whether or not he wishes to stay in the old world, or change to fit in with the new. The old world in this story would be the Nationalists, and the new world would be the Communists. Yu Yuan did not necessarily like the Communists way of doing things but he thought it was China’s best chance at survival. In each camp there were two separate groups of Chinese men, the Nationalists and the Commies (Communists). Yu Yuan was constantly being bombarded by both sides, he must join the Commies but he also must be a Pro-Nationalist. He knew that the Commies were ruthless, but the Pro-Nationalists could be ruthless as well. So which side did he want to choose? He wanted, above everything else, to get back to his mother and fiancée. So no matter what the cost, he would choose to side with the Communists, even if he hated them for not caring about individual lives, and instead thought of them all as indispensable: “To be honest, I didn’t fear this crowd [the Pro-Nationalists] all that much, because these were simpler, weaker men than the Communists. They cared more about personal relationships, especially brotherhood and group loyalty.” Even though he knew the Pro-Nationalists would treat him right, he chose to go with the Communists back to China. He chose the new world over the old in order to try and make it somewhere in life because he didn’t know what would become of him in Free China (Taiwan). Once back in China, though, he was stripped of all honor and sent to work in a school, which was better than most returning soldiers had gotten, because he was not an official Party member. As a result he did get somewhere in life by choosing to side with the new world, even if it wasn't exactly what he had expected.

One of my most prevalent thoughts while reading these novels was: “if you risk so much for your dream of becoming a better person and get out of poverty, enough to travel across the globe to the new world, then isn’t it work it to continue to work for and follow that dream once you’re in the new world?” In The Fortunate Pilgrim, the only person who wanted to change to follow the new world’s way of doing things was Octavia, especially after she returned from the hospital. In Bread Givers, Sara Smolinsky was the only person to desire to get out of the dirt of poverty and she achieved it by following the ways of the new world. In War Trash, Yu Yuan followed the new world and he did not find himself in poverty once returning from the war. The American dream, or the dream of having enough, is not a “blasphemous dream” as Lucia Santa thought, it’s just one that must be followed all the way through and not just followed to America and then quitting. And only a few people realize this and can actually fulfill that dream. 

The Fortunate Pilgrim

Mario Puzo's novel, The Fortunate Pilgrim, is a story about an entire Italian family living in pre-depression and then through the depression in the late 1920's. The story revolves around the Angeluzzi-Corbo family which consists of six children and their parents. The father, however, is gone throughout most of the novel because of his insanity and he dies towards the end of the novel, leaving his family without a bread-giver. The mother, Lucia Santa Angeluzzi-Corbo, is the strong leader of her crumbling family. Throughout the novel her children each face trials of their own and struggle to find who they are in the new world with a mother so rooted in her Italian heritage.

I really enjoyed this book, the characters, though there were many, were all described very well and made very real in my mind. I could see all the disobedient children rolling their eyes and fighting with their mother.  The pictures were vivid and I loved it. I also liked how real Mario Puzo was while writing the book. Most of the time when I think of the 1920's I think of the roaring twenties with all it's glimmer and majesty, but hardly ever do I think of the depression and the harsh living conditions that the immigrants and poorer people had to deal with.  And, Puzo, in this book made the harshness clear to me. The Angeluzzi-Corbo's were real people, with real pain and experiences. Larry's character was against the stereotypes I have always associated with that era. Octavia's character, my favorite, was one of a girl trying to decide which world she wanted to be a part of; the old world of Italy so ingrained in her mother, or the new world of America where ladies were proper and able to become whoever they wanted to become. Gino most reminded my of my younger brother, headstrong and rambunctious; never wanting to work or be responsible. And not only that, but Gino grew more and more defiant as he got older because his mother let him get away with a lot when he was younger. The other children were of course important, but I never really got a good understanding of the events in the book from their perspectives so I don't really get to know their personalities as much. 

A very important theme in this book is the fact that family is very important. You do what it takes to protect your family. This is very evident through many of Lucia Santa's choices throughout the novel. The first hard decision that she really has to make is whether or not she should send her husband to get help. She obviously doesn't want her children to live without a father but she also doesn't want them to be harmed so she makes the tough decision to send him away and keep him in a home for the insane. Larry, though he may seem to just do what he pleases, still has a heart for his family. He promises to help his mother out with money when they must send Octavia away because she is ill and he sticks around in order to help his younger brothers. When Octavia gets sick, Lucia decides to send her to a better hospital than she sent her husband, no matter the cost. She loves Octavia and after seeing how her husband was treated at the cheaper hospital she decides to send her daughter to the better hospital. It didn't matter what it cost her, her daughter and her family was more important. As poor immigrants, the Angeluzzi-Corbo's didn't have much in life, but they had each other and that was enough.