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Maxine Ratliff Maxine is Gogol’s serious love interest during the months before his father’s death. An art historian by education, Maxine works as an assistant editor for an art book publisher and lives with her wealthy parents in a five-story house.
What does Maxine represent in the namesake?
Maxine Ratliff
Maxine represents, for Gogol, a life very different from his own. She lives with her parents downtown, in a beautiful townhouse, and shares their intellectual, cosmopolitan life. Maxine does not always understand Gogol’s family’s traditions, but she tries to, and seems to care genuinely for him.
Why did Gogol and Maxine break up?
She and Gogol break up after the death of his father, when he is pulled back toward his family and begins to feel that she is an outsider, refusing to allow her to accompany them to India for Ashoke’s funeral.
What does Gogol learn about Maxine?
Gogol views his relationship with Maxine as the height of his “American-ness” so far in his life. Maxine and her parents represent what Gogol sees as the best of American culture: the interest in art and physical affection and relational openness that Gogol has never known with his own biological family.
Why is Maxine attracted to Gogol?
At first, she seems like the answer to all Gogol’s troubles, because Maxine fits the type that Gogol seems to be attracted to: she is all-American, she’s artistic and sexually uninhibited – in other words, she’s the complete opposite of the nice Bengali girl his parents would love him to marry.
maxine meets gogols parents
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Why do you think Gogol is attracted to Maxine her family and her way of life?
The fact that Maxine lives with her parents is one sign of how different she is from him – while he has been working to find independence from his family, hers is a source of stability and the affirmation of identity, something that Gogol will be intensely drawn to.
What is the plot of the namesake?
Plot. The Namesake depicts the struggles of Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli (Irrfan Khan and Tabu), first-generation immigrants from the East Indian state of West Bengal to the United States, and their American-born children Gogol (Kal Penn) and Sonia (Sahira Nair).
What happens to Gogol and Maxine?
The dinner goes well, and Gogol falls swiftly for Maxine. He becomes part of the life of the house, and finds Maxine’s existence to have melded with his own. He spends more time with the Ratliffs, eating their food and talking with them. He rarely goes back to his studio uptown.
What is the theme of the namesake?
Gogol engages in a constant struggle to remain loyal to both worlds. Hence, the major theme portrayed in the novel is one of identity. This them is illustrated vividly by examining the importance of one’s culture and background, gender, and name as the definition of patriarchal lineage and destiny in life.
Why did Gogol change his name?
“Gogol” makes Gogol feel like a child. Thus Gogol changes his name, officially, not to change how the world sees him, but to help change how he sees himself. He changes his name as part of a larger process of personal transformation and growth.
Why is Maxine no longer in Nikhil’s life?
Why is Maxine no longer in Nikhil’s life? … They broke up because Maxine wanted to go with Gogol to wrap up his dads life but Maxine did not know his dad well. He learns that she in engaged to a new man.
What name does moushumi use after they marry?
Gogol jokingly calls Moushumi Mrs. Ganguli-since they both know she will keep her maiden name, Mazoomdar. The two rent an apartment on Third Avenue in the Twenties, downtown. They furnish it with items from Ikea, and Gogol enjoys the patterns of their married life.
Why did moushumi break up with her fiance?
He proposed to her, and she accepted. But they began fighting after moving from Paris back to New York, and Moushumi realized that the banker was not at all comfortable with some of the customs of her Bengali relatives. They fought more, and eventually split, prompting a period of despair for Moushumi.
Who are the Ratliffs in the namesake?
Maxine’s parents Gerald and Lydia Ratliff are the polar opposites of Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli. Lydia is a textiles curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and her husband is a successful lawyer.
What does Gogol mean in the namesake?
Gogol is Gogol, of course, because his father and mother needed a name for him before leaving the hospital. The name “Gogol” was an important one to Ashoke, who adored Nikolai Gogol’s work. Ashoke also has traumatic connection to the train-wreck during which he was reading Gogol.
Who is the protagonist in namesake?
The protagonist of The Namesake is Gogol, who eventually changes his name to Nikhil as a way of displaying his own independence from his parents. The novel begins, as many bildungsromans do, with the story of Gogol’s birth.
What is a symbol in The Namesake?
To Gogol, the story is a symbol of his father’s love and deep ties to his family. Gogol uses the story after his father’s death to keep his father’s memory alive; he begins to read the story for the first time, realizing what kind of person his father really was.
What a namesake means?
: one that has the same name as another especially : one who is named after another or for whom another is named His grandson and namesake is the spit and image of him … –
What does the train symbolize in The Namesake?
Trains Symbol Analysis
The presence of trains in the novel seems to be a reminder of the constant and inevitable forward motion of life, which advances and accumulates outside of anyone’s control, as Gogol reflects at the end of the novel.
What happens at the end of the namesake?
Gogol spends time at the party, taking pictures of Ashima, Sonia, and Ben, setting up the fake tree in the living room for the last time. … He realizes it is his opportunity, finally, to connect more fully with his father’s life, and to learn more deeply what the name “Gogol” meant to Ashoke. The novel ends.
What was the climax of the namesake?
Climax – Nickhil married Moushumi and accepting his identity as Indian. Falling Action – Moushumi cheated on Nickhil and he divorced her. Resolution – Ashima goes back to India after Christmas dinner and Nickhil finally reads Nikolai Gogol, his father’s favourite author.
Who did Gogol date in the namesake?
The novel explored interracial relationships through the eyes of the American-born Gogol and his traditional South Asian parents. At one point in “The Namesake,” Gogol’s girlfriend, Maxine, asks him whether his parents want him to marry an Indian woman.
What is the main setting of the namesake?
The novel begins in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1968. Ashima Ganguli, expecting a child, makes a snack for herself in the kitchen of her apartment, which she shares with her husband, Ashoke. The two met in Calcutta, where their marriage was arranged by their parents.
How does Moushumi feel about her name?
Not only does Moushumi refuse Gogol’s last name, but she also treats the story of his name change like a joke while she is talking with her friends. What feels to Gogol like an intimate part of his identity Moushumi sees as an insignificant piece of biographical information, an amusing talking point during a party.
What happens in Chapter 8 of the namesake?
A few months after Ashoke’s death, Gogol and Maxine break up. A year later, Maxine is engaged to be married. Although both of them resist the idea of a marriage arranged by their parents, they are unexpectedly drawn to each other. …