CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
I.1 Background of the Study The Namesake is
one of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novels telling about Indian immigrant’s life in America. This novel shows
the immigrant’s feeling in facing and
overcoming new culture. This novel is not an easy matter to understand because the story consists of many
phenomena of human life such as human’s
struggle to survive living in new country, far from their family and to educate their generations in two different
cultures. General setting in this novel
is taken place in America and India, start when Ashoke and Ashima moved to America. They feel like stranger in
the crowded. Moreover Ashima has never
gone to overseas. This novel described how Indian immigrants pass their time to socialize and interact with new
surroundings.
Secondly, The Namesake is very
unique because it deals with the dilemmas
of a Hindu Bengali family which tries to find out self recognition.
Being an immigrant is not easy;
it is part of the social phenomena. They feel strange, culture shock and pull of esteeming
family traditions. This novel really shows
the cultural clash between Indian and American culture. The Namesake contains
about how the new culture influences immigrant’s life, especially Indian American immigrant. It deals with their
interaction, activities and social life.
Thirdly, The Namesake is about Gogol and his
family. Ashoke and Ashima as his parents
who give him name Gogol. Name is one of the important themes in this novel beside cultural
differences. At the beginning, Ashoke and Ashima want to keep their tradition in giving
name to their baby. They wait for the
letter from India contains Indian name made by Ashima’s great grandmother. It is one of India traditions
that they still use although they live in America. Unfortunately, the letter did not
arrive. In America, they need name for
the baby to make the birth certificate before they go out from hospital.
On the contrary, in India they
may wait to give name to their children.
Automatically, Ashoke and Ashima
agree to choose Gogol as their baby name.
Gogol is namesake of Russian
author. It makes the cultural clash arise in their family daily life, because it is not Indian or
American name.
Fourthly, in this novel Jhumpa
Lahiri describes how the real character as
Indian immigrant who lives in America which is well known as multicultural country. Through the characters
( Ashima, Ashoke and Gogol).
The Namesake portrays Indian
immigrant’s condition. Jhumpa Lahiri masterfully
explores the theme of the complexities of the immigrant experience and foreignness,
cultural clash, tradition and the tangled ties between generations. She tries to paint portrays of an
Indian family torn between the pull of
respecting Indian traditions.
The Namesake is one of Jhumpa
Lahiri’s literary works. She is an Indian
woman who lives in America. She also wrote Interpreter of Maladies that bagged the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for
fiction, won critical acclaim for its grace,
acuity, and compassion in detailing lives transported from India to America. Jhumpa Lahiri explores the life of
Bengali family who keep their Indian
culture. They fit readily into an academic community where they eventually find a group of other Bengalis.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Namesake.
Accessed on Monday 20 September 2010) Furthermore, The Namesake presented many
cultural clash faced by Gogol and his
family, and also how the immigrants survive their life in America. The cultural clash arise in the novel
can give the readers lessons about being
immigrant. It reminds for the immigrant to still establish a network of friends who are the same Indian immigrant,
together for holidays and special occasions
common to Bengali traditions. The
cultural clash in The Namesake actually shows the differences of traditions,
custom, family rule, and the way of
thinking.
The researcher is interested in
conducting this research because first, immigrant
problems is common issue relates to social phenomena. It always happens to people who immigrate and move to
new country in long period.
Second, it involves immigrant
parents role to educates and introduce Indian tradition even they live in America. Third,
people usually do not pay attention about
their own culture when they move to new environment.
In
this novel, Gogol feels confident when he can life and follow the American culture. Inside, his parents want him
to always remember where he is from. He
does not realize that his behavior hurt his parents. Unfortunately, when his father died, Gogol has just realized
that he is still just an Indian.
Through Lahiri’s The Namesake she
wanted to express her experiences as
Indian American that treated being immigrant needs hard effort to adapt with new culture. It shows that literature
becomes medium to communicate the author
to the reader. Besides as a means of communication, literature can be a social mirror. It means that literature
becomes an instrument to control the social
condition, culture and society’s custom. Literature is a mirror of life that presents many themes related to life. It is a
creative work of expression of the writer’s experiences, emotions,
imaginations, ideas, values and knowledge. It is not only an entertainment but also a
creative process or sublimation that intellectually
raises the readers’ awareness and imagination. It occurs because literature contains values offered (Fajar,
2003).
The researcher needs to
understand more the literary work especially the novel which is analyzed. She digs up the
social phenomena happen in The Namesake.
However, each element in the novel covered the author’s ideas that want to send to the readers. In literary criticism structuralism is one of
approaches that can be used to analyze
the intrinsic element in the novel. In structuralism
the message and value contains in the novel lay on the structure of the story. Structuralism is to analyze the
narrative material by examining the underlying
unchanging structure.
In
this study, the researcher tries to find the new term in analyzing The Namesake. She uses structuralism approach
especially social setting to dig deeper
some cultural phenomena and social text that presented in the novel, focuses on cultural clashes faced by the
character as immigrant. The researcher only
analyzes the intrinsic element of the novel.
The previous study which has the
same novel with this research is conducted
by Ratna Ariantinie (2009) student of Diponegoro University, untitled Conflict Experience by Gogol in
Leading his Two Cultures. She explores
about Gogol psychological experiences as immigrant using Freud’s theory of psychoanalytic for analyzing Gogol’s
condition. She also uses sociology
theory to analyze the two cultures faced by Gogol.
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