Poem : " La Belle Dame Sens Mercy"

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Welcome to my blog. This blog is related to my  B.A. poem  "  La Belle Dame Sans Merci."

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

       Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

       And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

       So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

       And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

       With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

       Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

       Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

       And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

       And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

       And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,

       And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

       A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

       And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

       ‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,

       And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

       With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

       And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dreamt

       On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

       Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci

       Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

       With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

       On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

       Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

       And no birds sing.

☆  About  the poet : 

John Keats was one of the greatest Romantic poets of the early 19th century.Click here

John Keats the great poet of the Romantic period produced all his great work from 1871 to 1820, Keats died very young at the tender age of twenty six. His death was the greatest loss that English poetry sustained. But whatever Keats has left behind is so beautiful and charming that posterity is much indebted to him for his poetic heritage. The first volume of his poems’ was published in 1817. It contained about seventeen sonnets, ‘I stood tip-top upon a little hill’. Three rhymed epistles and a few other poems. Then “Endymian '' was published in the year 1818 and finally came “Lamia Isabella. The Eve of St. Agnes’ and other poems in 1820. It also contained the Odes, ‘Hyperion’ and several other poems. There is also a considerable body of miscellaneous collected after Keat’s death which includes “The Eve of St. Mark” “La Belle Dain Sans Merci '' and some of his finest sonnets.Despite his growing ill-health, he continued to work for another year which produced his great ‘Odes’, all written during 1819. The doctors advised him to go to the South for a warmer climate in September 1820. His loving friend and artist, Sever, accompanied and nursed him tenderly in whose arms he breathed his last in February 1821. Of the Romantics, he was the last to be born and the first to die. He died at the age of 26. He was buried in Rome and his epitaph, as he had wished, bore the words : “Here lies one whose name was write in water.”

He wrote several beautiful poems; ‘Endymion’, Isabella, Hyperion. The Eve of St. Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and Lamia are his immortal poems. Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to Psyche, Ode to Melancholy, Ode to Autumn, and Ode to Indolence, are his great Odes.

 ☆Analysis of the  poem   ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’

The poem was written in April 1819 and published in ‘The Indicator’ on 10th May, 1820. The title of the poem is not English. Here was an English Translation of this poem and it was attributed to Chaucer. The title fascinated Keats’s fancy and in the ‘Eve of St. Agnes’ he makes Lorenzo waken Madeline by playing beside her bed.

“An ancient ditty, long since

In province call’d La Belle Dame Sans Merci!”

A pale and withered knight was wandering on the bank of a lake in the mid-summer. His looks were haggard. His face was pale and bloodless while there was a red flush of fever on his cheeks. The poet asked him the reason for his miserable condition. In reply the Knight told that once he happened to come across a lady in the valley. She was the daughter of a fairy, she possessed long hair, a nimble face and charming eyes. He made some ornaments of flowers which she gladly accepted. She fell in love with the knight and delighted him with her songs. She offered him sweet honey to take and then set out on journey by sitting on the back of a horse beside the Knight. She was closely attached to him while on journey she sang beautiful songs. Once the lady was with tears in her eyes but the Knight consoled her with his kisses. She lulled him asleep. The Knight dreamt a dream in his sleep. He saw princes, Kings and fighters. They were seen with open mouths. They all warned him against becoming a slave of the woman. He was then awake and found himself alone on the cold side of hills at such a time when the lake went dry and birds did not sing.

The title of the poem,  ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is in French and it means the beautiful lady without mercy. This is the only ballad written by Keats. Though short (48 lines) it is recognised as one of the finest romantic and narrative poems. Each stanza has a rhyme scheme a,b,c,b. The sad and pensive atmosphere is suggested by the short lines, the last line being still shorter.

The theme of the poem is unrequited love- the pain and suffering of one who loves but is not loved in return. It tells us about the love of a human being for a fairy.  For this ballad Keats has drawn his inspiration from old legends and literature.  Keats’ own experience of unfulfilled love may have given him the idea to express his feelings of frustration in this moving ballad. The haunting atmosphere of the medieval world has been created by the poet. There is the elfin grot, soul stirring music, magic spell, and hideous nightmares.

The poet/speaker in the course of his wanderings happens to meet a young knight in a strange place. He asked him why he looked (the knight) so frightened and miserable. The knight replied that sometime ago he had met a beautiful lady with wild eyes in a far off meadow. He fell in love with her and and with fragrant flowers made her a wreath , bracelets and a belt. She signalled that she loved him so he placed her on his horse, and led her to a small cave (This is what Lakshmi Akka says, but the poem says ‘she took me [the knight]  to her elfin grot’) . There she served him delicious food and then lulled him to  sleep.  In his dream he dreamt of Kings, Princes, and warriors. They warned him that the lady was cruel, and that he had been enslaved by her.  The knight tells the poet/speaker  that that was the reason he was loitering all alone in the intense cold weather, looking pale.

There is a touch of mystery about this poem, Partly this mystery is the result of the  supernatural elements.  Partly, it flows from the personality of the lady. Who is she? Is she human, or is she one of nature? Why does she attract people, and leave them so miserable? All these questions will remain unanswered forever.

The romantic quality of the poem is further enhanced by its atmosphere of medieval ages. This incident happens to a knight. The knight goes about on a pacing steed. There is a mention of pale knights, princes, kings, and warriors. These touches build up the medieval atmosphere.

Suggestiveness is the main beauty of the poem. The poet does not state or elaborate anything, he only hints. The strange lady, for example, is described merely with the help of brief but striking images. The atmosphere of supernaturalism and medievalism is also created using these suggestions. The poem also presents the romantic idea of love. It is presented as an all consuming passion. It haunts the night and also brings him to ruin.

The poem is highly successful, as it appeals to our sense of wonder. Keats has used metaphors as a  literary device, but other than this, the ballad has no other adornment.  The metaphor of the lily and of the ‘fading rose’ suggest the depletion of physical strength with the red color of the face turning pale.

The poem is a significant piece of literary art. It is the masterpiece of Keats. Sidney Coivin remarks, “To many readers the union of infinite tenderness with a weird intensity, the conciseness and purity of the poetic form, the wild yet simple music of cadences, the perfect inevitable of union of sound and sense make of ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ the masterpiece. The words and phrases like ‘palely loitering’ woebegone and a lily on the brow’ impart suggestive beauty.”

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poem: " The Daffodils "

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Welcome to my blog. This blog is related to my  B.A. poem  " Daffodils" 

☆ Introduction about the post: 

William Wordsworth was one of the first English Romantic poets, who along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge began the wave of Romanticism in English Literature with their joint publication “Lyrical Ballads' '. A poet laureate, William Wordsworth remains one of the most popular romantic poets.One of the classics in English Romantic poetry, “Daffodils” tells a tale about a poet discovering a field of the beautiful flowers while wandering around a village. Published in 1807, the poem was inspired by Wordsworth’s encounter with a long belt of daffodils while taking a walk with his sister Dorothy in April 1802. Further reading of William Wordsworth: click here .

 Major works

Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798) "Simon Lee" ...

Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (1800) Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. ...

Poems, in Two Volumes (1807) "Resolution and Independence" ...

"French Revolution" (1810)

Guide to the Lakes (1810)

"To the Cuckoo"

The Excursion (1814)

Laodamia (1815, 1845)

☆"Daffodils" by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

☆Analysis of the  poem " Daffodils "  :

The poet is wandering alone from one place to another like a cloud, which flies over valleys and hills with the flow of wind. Suddenly the poet sees a large number of golden daffodils. These daffodils are growing close to the lake and under the trees. A light breeze is blowing making these daffodils dance and flutter with it.

To the poet these daffodils look like the stars that shine and twinkle in the milky-way. The daffodils are spreading over a very large area along the margin of a bay. They are in an excessively huge quantity. All these daffodils are dancing happily with the wind.

The waves in the lake beside these daffodils are also dancing with the wind. But in comparison to the daffodils the waves are not as beautiful and attractive. Watching such a beautiful scene the poet feels very happy. The poet continues to look at the daffodils. The poet prizes the scene greatly for himself.Stanza 4

The poet says that whenever he lies down on his bed either thinking about anything or not thinking, the images of daffodils flash upon his imagination. It usually happens only when the poet is all alone. These images of daffodils have a magical effect on the poet.These images fill the heart of the poet with pleasure. The poet also feels like dancing with the daffodils.

Wordsworth is mainly a nature poet and for him. there is nothing which is superior to and better than Nature. He breathes through with nature and finds solace and spiritual peace in it. In his opinion, nature has the solution for all the problems of mankind. It is through nature that he seeks salvation. The theme of this poem i.e. “Daffodils” is based on the healing and refreshing power of nature. How easy it is for nature to lift the spirit and the morale of the man is also depicted in this poem. The poem is rich in imagery and the description of the daffodils is delightful. The poet starts the poem with the simile and compares himself with the cloud wandering lonely, free from duty and responsibility, here and there like the cloud. But as soon as he sees the beautiful golden daffodils growing along the margin of a bay beneath the trees,dancing and fluttering with the light breeze, he finds himself captivated by their magical beauty.The poet is so impressed by their beauty that the near-by lake whose waves are also dancing and sparkling, thus looking enchanting, also captivate his attention. The poet begins to admire the mesmeric beauty of the daffodils and is unable to think of anything else. In fact, at that time he could not think of the great importance of the scene for him but later while lying on his couch he realizes the very great importance the scene had on him.

The last stanza of the poem is the most important part of the poem and is the essence of the poem. In this stanza, the poet speaks about the healing and refreshing effect of nature and also praises solitude. According to him, when one is in the state of solitude, one becomes retrospective and meditates on all the good and pleasurable moments which one had or which had happened to him-in his life. These memories have a cheerful and lively effect on him. He greatly feels happy not only with himself but also with all that happened to him. The poet says that whenever he lies on his couch having nothing to do or in pensive mood, enjoying the solitude, the images of the daffodils flash upon his imagination. When this happens, the poet feels calm, refreshed, motivated and good about himself. This is how nature influences him.The memories of the daffodils fills his heart with pleasure and joy and he feels like dancing along with the daffodils. This shows the healing and refreshing effect of nature on the poet.

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Poem " Virtue "

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Welcome to my blog . This blog related to the thinking activity  on B.A.  poem  like : " Virtue."

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky:

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie,

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

☆ Introduction  of the poet : 

George Herbert was born into a wealthy and titled family at Montgomery Castle, in Wales, on April 3, 1593, as one of nine children. His father, Sir Richard Herbert, died in 1596, when George was three years old.Herbert's first poems were Latin sonnets that he wrote for his mother. In them, he argued that a more fitting subject for poetry than love for a woman was love for God. His first published verses appeared in 1612. They were two poems, also in Latin, written in memory of King James's son Prince Henry, who had died that year. In 1624 and 1625, Herbert was elected to Parliament to represent Montgomery. However, rather than pursuing a career in politics or as a courtier, which had been his intention, after the death of King James, he devoted himself to the priesthood. In 1630, Herbert took holy orders in the Church of England and became the rector of Bemerton, near Salisbury. He married Jane Danvers, the cousin of his mother's second husband, in 1629. During his three years as a priest, Herbert wrote A Priest to the Temple; or, The Country Parson, His Character, and Rule of Holy Life, in which he set forth a guide for pastors in caring for their parishioners and in developing their own spirituality.

☆ Analysis of  this poem:

"Virtue" is one of the poems in a collection of verse called The Temple (1633), which George Herbert wrote during the last three years of his life. By then, he had taken holy orders in the Anglican Church and become rector in Bemerton, England, near Salisbury. Herbert's poems are lyrical and harmonious, reflecting the gentle voice of a country person spreading the Christian message. He appreciates the beauty of creation not only for its own sake but also because he sees it as a mirror of the goodness of the Creator. Yet, despite Herbert's sense of the world's loveliness, his poems often reflect the transience of that beauty and the folly of investing it with any real value. In "Virtue," he presents a vision of an eternal world beyond the one available to sense perception.

Implicit in "Virtue" is a delicately expressed struggle between rebellion and obedience. The understated conflict lies between the desire to experience worldly pleasures and the desire.or as Herbert would insist, the need to surrender to the will of God. The battle waged between rebellion and obedience can be seen more clearly in one of the best known poems in The Temple, "The Collar." Therein, the poet "raves'' against the yoke of submission that he must bear until he hears the voice of God call him "child"; then, he submissively yields, as the poem ends with the invocation "My Lord!" This conclusion indicates that what the narrator feels about the experience of the natural world is of less authenticity than an inner voice of authority that directs him toward God.Herbert's poetry displays a conjunction of intellect and emotion. Carefully crafted structures, like the first three quatrains, or four-line stanzas, of "Virtue," all of which are similarly formed, contain sensuously perceived content, like depictions of daytime, nightfall, a rose, and spring. Such a combination of intellect and emotion, in which the two forces.

expressed in bold metaphors and colloquial language, struggle with and illuminate each other, is most apparent in the poetry of one of Herbert's contemporaries, John Donne, and is called metaphysical poetry. In "Virtue," an example of this combination of the intellectual and the sensuous can be seen in the second line of the third quatrain, when the spring is compared to a box of compressed sweets.

In "Virtue," which comprises four quatrains altogether, Herbert reflects on the loveliness of the living world but also on the reality of death.Building momentum by moving from the glory of a day to the beauty of a rose to the richness of springtime, while reiterating at the end of each quatrain that everything "must die," Herbert leads the reader to the last, slightly varied quatrain. There, the cherished thing is not a tangible manifestation of nature but the intangible substance of "a sweet and virtuous soul." When all else succumbs to death, the soul "then chiefly lives." Not through argument but through an accumulation of imagery, Herbert contrasts the passing glories of the mortal world with the eternal glory of the immortal soul and thereby distinguishes between momentary and eternal value.

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poem : " The Eagle"

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This blog is  related to  the thinking activity : "The Eagle "  poem.

☆  Introduction about   poet : 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the most renowned poet of the Victorian era. His work includes 'In Memoriam,' 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and 'Idylls of the King.'Tennyson was appointed to the position of Poet Laureate; Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Leigh Hunt had also been considered.Tennyson was the first to be raised to a British peerage for his writing  further  biography  of Alfred, Lord Tennyson  click here .Inspiration for "The Eagle" came to him during a trip to the Pyrenees Mountains on the Spanish-French border during the summer of 1830.

☆ About   the poem  :

'The Eagle'

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Lord Tennyson in his poem “The Eagle” describes an eagle perched on a high mountain crag. The climax of the incident is the moment the bird suddenly shoots down on its prey. The eagle is an unusually large bird of prey. It has a keen sharp eyesight, plashing speed and great strength. It enables it to strike from a great distance of its unsuspecting prey. It kills and carries off animals as large as lambs.

 In the poem, the poet describes all this behaviour patterns of the bird so the reader can see and feel that the bird becomes a suitable symbol for the theme.

 The poet presents a vivid picture of a lonely coastal atmosphere. It is surrounded with ranges of tall and huge rocks. The sky seems to be cloudless. So, it could be a bright and sunny day. The sea doesn't seem to be rough. The centre-focus is the eagle in thisclear picture."The Eagle" is a short, six-line poem that is rich with descriptive imagery of the natural world. This poem provides a vivid image of a proud eagle atop a mountain.

The Eagle’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson portrays the swiftness and agility of the king of birds. The shortness of the poem is a reference to an eagle that is ready to latch onto its prey. It is like a monarch of nature, keeping a strategic distance from the metaphorical “wrinkled sea” crawling below. The poet is no doubt impressed by the bird’s agility and capacity. ‘The Eagle’ by Tennyson was a source of inspiration to Ted Hughes. He wrote ‘Hawk Roosting’ by imitating the Tennysonian model.

The eagle is the active figure in the poem and seems to possess the power of choice in addition to an implied power to destroy.

Tennyson uses lush and vivid language to powerfully communicate the image of the eagle clutching the crag in its "crooked hands" far above the "wrinkled sea" that "crawls." The choice of words.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Eagle” uses imagery to portray the king of the skies: the eagle. Tennyson traveled in the Pyrenees where he often saw eagles circling overhead.One of the prominent themes in this poem is that even the most majestic of creatures (including people) have limitations. In poetry and literature, the eagle is often a symbol for majesty, power.

poem is the majesty of nature. Man cannot usually see the eagle because of the places that it chooses to build its nests. Most of the time man can only imagine what the eagle's movement and life are like. The freedom and beauty of this unparalleled bird is mother nature at its most pure.

 ☆ Critical  analysis of the  poem :

In the first stanza, the poet creates a setting where a lone eagle stands on a crag of a mountain overlooking the sea with the sky surrounding it like a backdrop. The visual imagery is further elaborated with the color ‘azure’ describing the beauty of the sky. The terms ‘lonely lands’ could be referring to the immense stretches of sea and sky. The image is continued in the next line with the metaphor ‘azure world’. This depicts a vast space where the bird could fly free unopposed as we know that the eagle is a powerful creature with sharp vision and strength as a predator.

Through the eyes of this powerful predator, the sea below him is a ‘wrinkled sea’ that ‘crawls beneath him’. The fact that the creature stands on a crag shows how unreachable he is to man. The poet thus creates an image that portrays the eagle as a creation of nature which is also protected by nature. In the line “From his mountain walls’’, ‘walls’ suggest protection for the eagle, which lives in a place almost inaccessible to humans, protected and unreachable in a beautiful azure eyrie of sorts with a massive space like the sky and a large area of sea. The last line, ‘like a thunderbolt he falls’, is an understatement because an eagle does not just fall off a cliff; it would dive to catch its prey or reach a place where his sharp vision caught some attention.

Throughout the poem, however, we see that the poet has attempted to humanize the eagle through use of pronouns ‘he’, ‘him’ and ‘his’. Instead of using ‘claws’ which seems like a more appropriate term to describe a bird, he uses ‘hands’. Similarly, the actions of a bird are also termed differently: ‘stands’ instead of ‘perches’ and ‘falls’ instead of ‘dives’. Thus, the poet could be using the eagle as a symbol of masculinity; a great man powerfully portrayed as possessing very sharp vision and strength. Man is an excellent and clever predator but, a predator nevertheless; with the ability to destroy somebody else’s life. In the setting created by the poet, he is passive till the climax when he dives like a great man who keeps his powers in reserve till the right moment. This man is not just a man but he is transformed into a superhero living at a very high vantage point secure and in control of his own world.

The debate between man and nature and who has the ultimate power to control is discussed with subtlety. The sea, sky, and mountains are all elements of nature while the sea and sky symbolize freedom. Within such limitless freedom, the ‘mountain walls’ other than offering protection also constrain man’s freedom (unlike the bird who could fly above all). The eagle is adapted to flying in any direction but when considering the eagle as a man, he falls off the cliff. Ultimately what controls the man is gravity, which is a force of nature. Tennyson thus places nature above man. Contradicting this viewpoint, another perspective is how the poet creates an imaginary world, but without the ability to exclude humans. Thus, humans are also integral to nature. Then the first argument gets revived when we see how nature in turn controls man who cannot challenge the changes he has to undergo. ‘the wrinkled sea beneath him crawls’, Although ambiguous, it could suggest personification of man and his life cycle, because ‘wrinkled’ suggests old age and ‘crawls’ suggests infancy. Thus, the impending philosophical debate is also then open to the reader whether man is above or below nature.

Lord Tennyson is   used a two stanza poem that is separated out into two sets of three lines, known as tercets. These tercets follow a very simple rhyme scheme that conforms to a pattern of AAA BBB. The poem also makes use of the metrical pattern of iambic tetrameter.

Personification is when a non-human object or an animal is given human qualities. In the first stanza the eagle is personified as Tennyson says, "He clasps the crag with crooked hands." and "Ring'd with the azure world he stands." Of course, he doesn't have hands, he has talons, and he doesn't stand, he perches.

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Novel " The Namesake "

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Welcome  to my blog.  This blog is related to the  thinking activity  on B.A  text  : "The Namesake "  This is the novel I like the most. This book and movie different. But ideas has same. Movie's characters image like

novel suggests  a search for identity.  This novel written by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Her few Introduction about: Click here

☆ About " The Namesake " : 

Character  list : Click here

The Namesake tackles the question of forming one’s own identity, and explores the power that a name can carry.Gogol’s decision to change his name to Nikhil before leaving home for college demonstrates his desire to take control over his own identity. The name Gogol, which “Nikhil” finds so distasteful, is a direct result of the literal identity confusion at his birth, when the letter sent from India that contained his “true name” was lost in the mail. “Gogol” is also a name that holds deep meaning for Ashoke, since it was a book of short stories by Gogol, the Russian author, that saved his life during a fateful train crash. but this meaning is not conveyed to Gogol/Nikhil during his childhood.

As the other theme outlines make clear, the main tension that drives Gogol/Nikhil’s identity confusion is the divide between his family’s Indian heritage and his own desire for an independent, modern American lifestyle.

 Many of the choices that he makes seem motivated by a desire to live life as a “normal” American, and to escape the influence of his family. Gogol’s relationship to Maxine, for example, an upper class New Yorker who lives at home with her stylish and modern parents, evolves to the point of offering Gogol an alternative home. He vacations with Maxine’s family instead of returning home to visit his own, and embeds himself in their rituals. The identity that she and her family represent is clearly a very seductive one.

However, there are also momentslike after the death of his father, or when he decides to marry Moushumithat Gogol seems to be reaching back toward his roots. Although his marriage to Moushumi ends in divorce, the book’s conclusion, as Gogol sits down to finally read the book of his namesake’s short stories that his father had given him long ago, suggests a new acceptance of his past, and a willingness to allow his background to become a part of his identity.

Naming, and nicknames, are also a symbol of the bonds shared by different characters throughout the novel, and they carry weight as markers of those bonds. When Ashoke and Ashima return to Calcutta on family vacations, they become “Mithu” and “Monu,” and are transformed into more confident versions of themselves. Sonia calls Gogol “Goggles,”

☆  Main Idea  on " The Namesake "  : 

Identity and Naming  

As its title suggests, at its core The Namesake tackles the question of forming one’s own identity, and explores the power that a name can carry. Gogol’s decision to change his name to Nikhil before leaving home for college demonstrates his desire to take control over his own identity. The name Gogol, which “Nikhil” finds so distasteful, is a direct result of the literal identity confusion at his birth, when the letter sent from India

Family, Tradition, and Ritual  

The importance of family in The Namesake cannot be overstated. The novel is centered around the Ganguli family, and the ways in which two very different generations interact with one another.For Ashoke and Ashima, the concept of a family life is inherited directly from their background in India, where entire families share the same home for generations, are deeply invested in one another’s lives.

Independence, Rebellion, and Growing Up

Gogol’s struggle for independence from the family that he sometimes finds embarrassing is a major feature of the novel. The Namesake fits some definitions of a Bildungsroman, a coming-of-age novel, with Gogol as the protagonist who grows up over the course of the story. Although our view into the life of Ashoke and Ashima makes them central to the novel, it is Gogol who becomes the main protagonist.

 

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