The Conflicts and Complexities of Father/Son Relationships - Essay Example

The Conflicts and Complexities of Father/Son Relationship Among the wide range of famous of the XX century, the names of Arthur Miller and Jhumpa Lahiri take a special significant place. Being the authors of two different masterpieces of modern literature, Miller and Lahiri highlight and emphasize the sharpest problems of social life and general American lifestyle. In addition, Death of Salesman and The Namesake differ greatly in literary form and the way they were written. While the first work is a play with a specific way of text organization in the form of dialogues, The Namesake is a novel with appropriate narrative covering and numerous additional descriptions. The list of heroes, covered by both compositions, is approximately limited by one family – Ganguli in The Namesake and Loman in Death of a Salesman. However, despite the wide range of differences and contradictory issues, which are presented in these two families, both works have numerous aspects in common. The main similarity lies in the major topic of both compositions, which describe the complexities of relationship between children and parents. Considering the sharpest points of father/son relations, Death of a Salesman and The Namesake provide similar view and common steps of the major idea's development, showing the main stages of father/son conflict from the rejection of understanding to a sincere acceptance and later reunion of father and son as the closest persons. A conflict situation and the first problematic aspect, which occurs in the relations between Ashoke Ganguli and his son Gogol, takes place from the very beginning of Gogol's appearance in The Namesake. It appears that being a traditional Indian family, who has to live in the USA, Ashoke and his wife Ashima need to choose the first official name for their newborn son and wait for their grandmother's letter with her decision about this problem. In order to check out from the hospital and come back home, Ashoke provides an informal traditional name for his son, which appears to be Gogol. It occurs that this name is not occasional for Ashoke since precisely a book of a famous Russian writer saved his life during a terrible train crash once. After the horrible accident, Ashoke always remains thankful to this book: "Instead of thanking God he thanks Gogol, the Russian writer who had saved his life" (Lahiri 21). Not surprisingly that with the passage of time, Gogol does not like his quite strange name since it is too unusual for his surroundings. In contrast to The Namesake, Death of a Salesman describes another side of complicated relationship between father and son. Being a salesman with extensive experience, Willy Loman cannot understand why his son Biff does not want to follow his own steps and become successful in business. For his 60 years, Willy Loman is not so self-confident and hopeful as when he was young, being stressed with his current unsuccessful job: "I get the feeling that I'll never sell anything again, that won't make a living for you, or a business, a business for the boys" (Miller 22). Moreover, he is used to thinking that Biff is his last hope to make all his dreams and business plans real and achieve a success. The conflict occurs that Biff does not have the same opinion about his further lifestyle in accordance to his father's expectations. Blaming himself in all problems, which he has got in life, Biff does not confess even himself about the true reasons of such behavior. In fact, the main problem and the true background of the conflict between father and son, provided by The Namesake, lies in cultural identity and different perception of traditions. In other words, Ashoke and his wife support the traditional view on lifestyle and family values, which is close to the Indian culture, while his son Gogol, who was born in the USA, strives to live in accordance with the American way of life. Being, in fact, an immigrant with not equal status in the foreign country, Gogol is focused on achieving respect and true acceptance from the American community. At first, Gogol has a lot of problems at school since he does not feel enough equality among children of other nations. Explaining the test system of school knowledge estimating, it is said in the novel that "Teleologically speaking, ABCDs are unable to answer the question, "Where are you from?" (Lahiri 118). Furthermore, describing Gogol's relations with his classmates, the author mentions that "He has no ABSC friends at college..he avoids them, for they remind him too much of the way his parents choose to live, befriending people not so much because they like them, but because of a past they happen to share" (Lahiri 119). Therefore, it is clear that because of the lack of father's desire to adapt his son to the new life, Gogol suffers from recognizing his identity correctly. On the other hand, the development of father/son conflict relations appears to become prominent in Death of a Salesman, when Biff begins to reject his father's propositions to change his current work as a farmhand. As Biff explains to his younger brother Happy, "There's nothing more inspiring or beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt" (Miller 10). Changing several places of work after finishing school, Biff Loman does not feel enough happiness since, as he guesses, office requirements and business approaches are not suitable for him. However, his father Willy does not think in the same way, being sure that Biff has the whole range of chances and abilities to become a successful businessman. During the whole play Willy Loman remembers Biff's success at school, having no idea or explanation why his son has failed his further life so suddenly. Father can never allow himself to think that his son may not want to live the same life as he did during the whole life, since without success and prosperity there is no life, as Willy points out. One of the most critical moments in complicated relations between father and son occurs to the Ganguli's family from The Namesake, when Gogol chooses another name for common use among his friends. Nikhil, which means "nothing" in the Greek language, is the name which Ashoke gives his son as the second name after informal Gogol. Being closely connected to the Russian writer again, Ashoke's son does not like his new name for the first time since it means something bizarre and empty for him. However, as time passes, he starts to use it as his main name during the period of adolescence: "I'm Nikhil now,' Gogol says, suddenly depressed by how many more times he will have to say this, asking people to remember, reminding them to forget, feeling as if errata slip were perpetually pinned to his chest" (Lahiri 119). As the researchers of The Namesake mention, "Simultaneously, the protagonist identifies with and rejects the name ABCD" (Dhingra et al. 17). In fact, committing such a change, Gogol makes an attempt to adapt to the American society and break father's stereotypes and biased traditions. At the same time Gogol starts to meet American girls, wear typical American clothes, and live the life of an up-to-date teenager, while his parents try to be closely connected with their relatives and Bengali's traditions. Gogol still does not understand Ashoke's admiration about Gogol and the true sense of his name. Rejecting his father's values can be also considered as the main characteristic for Biff Loman from Death of a Salesman since he abandons the last attempt to become a full embodiment of his father Willy's dreams. In one of the most critical moments of the whole play Biff confesses to his father that he is not able to work in a business area and he has failed to get a job, which his father recommends. During their argument, disclosing the true attitude between father and son, Arthur Miller shows a significant moment in the past that explains the reason of Biff's unsuccessful existence during the whole life. After Biff, as a teenager, has detected the fact of his father's unfair treatment of his wife, the whole system of Biff's views and values has been broken, since father occurs to be the only admired ideal in his son's life: "You fake! You phony little fake! You fake!", says Biff to his father at the moment of sharp argument (Miller 100). In such case, as famous researcher of the play mentions, "Willy Loman's American dream is rescued from aesthetic banality precisely because it is possessed by the enigmas that mark a guilty dream" (Bloom 9). The end of the father/son conflict happens in both compositions in a slightly similar way, being resolved with the death of both fathers, Ashoke and Willy. While the protagonist of The Namesake, Gogol or Nikhil, accepts the ideals and beliefs of his father, finally realizing the whole complexity of his life and meaning of Nikolai Gogol in his life, Biff Loman from Death of a Salesman reconciles his inner world with the crash of his father's hopes and dreams, being satisfied with the further life on a farm. Both literary works put emphasis on complexity in relationship between two generations and warn their readers about the necessity to prevent the most critical finale connected with the death of one hero, as the only way to solve a conflict. The lack of understanding and ability to take one's life and system of values often interfere with fathers and their sons in being true friends and the closest persons to one another as they should actually be. Therefore, it is important to mention that complexity in father/son relationship can be prevented through the appropriate level of communication, acceptance of one another's lifestyle, and efficient attempts to understand each other in any conflict situation. Works Cited Bloom, Harold. Death of a Salesman: Bloom's Guides. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009. Print. Dhingra, Lavina, and Floyd Cheung. Naming Jhumpa Lahiri: Canons and Controversies. New York: Lexington Books, 2011. Print. Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Crone, 2003. Print. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. London: Enoch Brater, 2010. Print. Read More