Anils Ghost by Michael Ondaatje - Essay Example

Anil’s ghosts resemble the people who were victims of the civil war. He knew how much suffering these people from his Sri Lanka, where he is born, during the war. Anil tried to hide the harsh realities about the history of his roots brought about the casualties and fatalities of the war.“But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of their hand-holding on the street and lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy.

” (page 4)The ghost of Gogol in The Namesake is simply Gogol’s national heritage and ethnicity. The existence of the ‘ghost” is a result continuous attempt to escape from the culture that his family wishes to inculcate in him. Lahiri follows the story of Gogol, born to an Indian immigrant couple who have come to create a new life of opportunities for themselves in the university suburbs of Boston. The name Gogol is given to him as a pet name, the name that only his close family will use.

It is a Bengali tradition to have two names, a family name and a formal name for everyone else to use. But in America, things are done differently, and very soon everyone is calling him Gogol rather than his formal name, Nikhil. The Namesake continues to develop further the themes of cultural alienation and loss of identity that the immigrant faces in making a new home in a foreign country.Gogol is never meant to be Gogol’s official or ‘good’ name. It is given as a temporary solution, intended to serve only as a daknam or pet name until his real name arrives.