Arranged Marriage - The Namesake

What is an arranged marriage, you ask? Great question, Reader! According to OxfordDictionaires.com, an arranged marriage is defined as, "a marriage planned and agreed to by the families or guardians of the bride and groom, who have little or no say in the matter themselves." Basically, the parents agree on the marriage, not the the bride and groom themselves.

Now you ask, "How does an arranged marriage fit into the Indian culture?" Again, what a great question, Reader! Arranged marriages in India are very common. They originally came to be when the Hinduism replaced the Vedic religion around 500 B.C.E.

You then ask about how arranged marriages relate to The Namesake. OMG, Reader, you are on fire! Where do you come up with these questions?! In The Namesake, Ashima and Ashoke have an arranged marriage and proves to affect Gogol's life.

Great! All your questions are answered!!

As for Gogol, the arranged marriage could have had bigger effect on him then previously discovered. Brace yourself, this is going to be hard to explain through a computer screen.
Anyways....
A regular marriage is based on love right? Yes, of course. (Well, sometimes... but that's a whole other barrel of monkeys) So, what is an arranged marriage based off of? I believe that an arranged marriage is based on culture. Or in other words, the common ground of marriage is the shared culture.
For Ashima and Ashoke that statement is generally correct.
Now what happens when the marriage that is based on Indian culture moves to a totally different culture, American culture?
From critically reading, it can be seen that the result of the change comes adversity and identity crisis.
For Ashima, especially, the change is really hard. At the beginning of the novel, she feels like she doesn't belong and "nothing feels right". The unfamiliarity and how uncomfortable Ashima is in the new culture has an effect on her marriage and later Gogol. The name 'Gogol' is seen as an example of how the change in culture has been an ordeal.

Despite all that, I feel like Ashima and Ashoke, throughout the book, become more of a caring couple and less of the couple they were at the beginning of the novel, an arranged one.

Names, Names, Names

*Disclaimer: You probably should read up to chapter 7 of the Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri before reading this post.*

Thinking about my blog post for this week, I was so lost. What the heck am I supposed to write about this week? Gogol is just growing up with an absurd name... So I thought about it, obviously - so I could get a good grade. It came to me - I remember hearing about names in a class that I went to.

The instructor said something like: "There are three names that people have: one that strangers call you, one that family and friends call you, and one that you use to address yourself."

Well great! Now I have a blog post that has a topic!

I think that those three names accurately describe Gogol's struggle throughout the novel. 

For his first name (the one that he gets called by strangers) used to be Gogol, now Nikhil, is purely based on legal circumstances. At first, his legal name is Gogol and then changes it out of hatred to Nikhil. For most people, the name that you are addressed by by strangers is just someway for others to get your required attention. Nothing really more. For Gogol(or Nikhil - now I am confused on what to call him) however, this name is something more. I believe that he wants to stray from his past and literally and figuratively "clear his name".  His first name becomes more significant when is changes to Nikhil, as he becomes more confident, "grows a goatee, [and] starts smoking Camel Lights at parties" (105). When strangers call him "Nikhil, he changes into a different person. 

His second name, the one that family friends calls him, has also changed like his first name. Unlike the first name, this name has a different significance. The change from Gogol to Nikhil was a lot harder for him and for the people that were close to him. He had to constantly ask people to remeber and admitted that he was "reminding people to forget" (119) the name Gogol. When his parents began calling him  Nikhil and completely disregarding Gogol, the name they used to call him, it was unsettling for Nikhil/Gogol. This second name is probably the name that conflicts him the most. Even though Nikhil is a more 'Indian' name than Gogol, it seems as if "Gogol" has more ties to his Indian culture. 

Lastly, his third name, the one of which he calls himself. I believe that this name should be regarded as most important and with the utmost reverence. After all, it is the one that reflects what you think of yourself. For Gogol, he struggles with this name. He constantly waivers between Nikhil and Gogol. When he changes his name to Nikhil and when people have began to call him that (his first name), "he doesn't feel like a Nikhil". (105) At this point, I would like to call up Jhumpa and politely scream at her through the phone to tell her to rewrite this classic novel with a more decisive character. 

Basically, we are unsure of each of the three names(we have some decent clues, but they keep changing). I think that Lahiri challenges us to find the character's names - the one stangers call him, the one his family/friends call him, and the one he calls himself. Well, my challenge to you reader is what are your three names? Are you as confused as Nikhil/Gogol is? Are your names changing?

How to Uphold Tradition: The Namesake

Ooookkkayyy time for another boring school mandated book. Psych! The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is actually not that bad. However, I have only read the first two chapters. But so far so good.

Here's a summary:
1. An Indian woman, called Ashima, is pregnant in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
2. She really misses India, more specifically, Calcutta and her Family.
3. She gives birth to a baby boy.
4. The grandmother is supposed to send names for the boy, as per tradition.
5. Ashoke, the arranged husband of Ashima, is really enamored with reading. His favorite story is "The Overcoat" By Nikolai Gogol. *Sidenote: He almost died on a train while reading that story.
6. The hospital that the boy was born at requests a name for the birth certificate, however the letter from the grandmother has not arrived yet. So, the boy gets named "Gogol", after his Dad's favorite story. The couple is planning on changing the boy' name once grandmom's letter arrives because Gogol is not a fit traditional Indian name.
7. Asima really longs to go back to India. She send letters to her family in India. They send some back.
8. Ashima raises the baby with little help of Ashoke who is studying 24/7 at a university in Cambridge.
9. The couple has planned a trip back to India to visit in December.
10. Meanwhile, Gogol's (it's a placeholder name - the letter from grandmom has not arrived yet...) rice ceremony, a traditional celebration that marks the first time the baby will eat solid food, has taken place.
11. Gogol grows up (He is around the age of 1).
12. Ashima get's letters from India saying that Grandmother is really sick.
13. Unexpectedly, the couple receives a telephone call from relatives in India. They learn that Grandmom has a stroke.
14. They change their plans and go to India earlier than expected.

The happy family!

From these two chapters, I have learned about the struggle of upholding tradition in a foreign place.

Ashima really really really really (etc.) wants to be back in India. When in the hospital, she constantly thinks about India. She thinks about her "mother, very soon to be grandmother,"(5) and the rest of her family longing to be with them. In Cambridge, where she is now, "nothing feels normal."(5).
Ashima struggles get a connection to India from America. All she wants is for her son to grow up around his family in India. In an effort to console herself, she writes a multitude of letters back to her family in India.

One of the biggest problems that Ashima struggles with is the authenticity of Indian tradition in America. Even though she does have a Rice ceremony for her son, it is not preformed with the same genuineness as if it would have been held in India. Ashima remarks that the bowls that contain the ceremonial rice is held is not "silver or brass or at the very least stainless-steel" (39) which they would have been if the ceremony was held in India.

It is on everyone's mind, the baby's name. Who in their right mind would name a son after a Russian author?? Well I guess, someone who is really obsessed, someone like the baby's father. Upon picking the name, Ashima said nothing, but only to respect her husband. However, she longs for her grandmother's letter so she can replace "Gogol". I am pretty sure that the name chosen will haunt Ashima for the rest of her life. It is so out of tradition that she cannot bare it. When her grandmother has a stroke and cannot chose a name for Gogol, the name becomes his, and tradition is lost. A pity, really! The name that her grandmother would have picked would be something that would connect her son to their culture and something that she would use to remember her family in India while she lived in America.

I read on to know what happens with Gogol and his namesake.

The First Part of Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I have just finished reading the first part of Notes From Underground (by Foyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Ralph Matlaw). Suffice to say, probably one of the most challenging books I've read ever!

Consequently for this blog post, I will attempt at deciphering the Underground Man's(that is what I shall call the narrator) thoughts. 

In an effort to understand the novel, I read the Wikipedia page. I know, I know, Wikipedia is not a credible source...blah blah blah. However, the page does provide an elaborate(and quite correct) summary of the first part of the novel. 

Wikipedia, to explain the first part of the novel, splits it up into 5 categories: (1) An introduction, where the Underground Man sets up riddles and metaphors whose meanings will be developed further throughout the first part. (2) In chapters two, three and four, the Underground Man talks about man's suffering and the enjoyment of suffering. (3) Then the Underground Man moves into talking about conscious laziness in chapters five and six. (4) Next the Underground Man proposes his theories of reason, logic and rational thinking in chapters seven through nine. (5) The last two chapters(ten and eleven) are a summary and a transition into Part 2.

Densely packed with information! Only 40 pages and my mind is nowhere to be seen!

The Underground Man, "I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man."(1)

The first sub-part (1), is probably the most entertaining. He starts by saying he hates seeing doctors, but respects them, and how he has liver disease. What a character. Then he talks about how his age(he's only 40!) is he largest contributing factor to his spiteful manner. The Underground Man then talks about his time as a civil servant. Not to mention he hated it! His contradictory personality makes me chuckle. It's like he is a four year old stuck in a grouchy 40 year old's body. 

In the next sub-part (2), we start to discover why the Underground Man is cantankerous and spiteful. He talks about suffering and consciousness. Two topics that I thought were quite different, but apparently are quite connected according to the Underground Man. He states that he is overly conscious, which is bad, and narrow minded people are ideal. His over-consciousness makes him unable to act and lazy. 

He moves on to talk about a toothache and the positive aspects of suffering through the toothache. The people that are narrow minded with the appropriate amount of consciousness, will enjoy the suffering because they can moan to others to create awareness of their toothache. The Underground Man's reasoning is very confusing, so much so, that rereading it can cause even more confusion. 

Sub-Part (3), continues to comment on his laziness and consciousness. One important part from this sub-part, is when he says he is "an intelligent man only because all my life I have been able neither to begin nor to finish anything"(17). My question to you, is how can you be remotely intelligent if you haven't really accomplished anything in your life??

The next part (4), the Underground Man talks about logic and rational thinking of man. He really is keen on the idea that rational thinking is best. He also believes that man relys on order, even though he says that logic cannot explain the actions of man. I do not understand how the Underground Man can promote reason and logic, when his thoughts are codices that have yet to be thoroughly deciphered. 

The last part(FINALLY-- am I right??) summarizes the first part in attempt to set up the Apropos of Wet (AKA part two). The Underground Man admits that the last chapters might have been just babble. Nevertheless, he justifies the rambling by stating that he has been underground for 40 years, simply thinking and he wants his thoughts on paper. To set up the "Apropos of Wet" the Underground Man tells us that lately he has been remembering memories that he wants out of his mind, on paper. Honestly, I do not know why he wants to tells us about his life, other than the therapeutic aspect for himself. 

If you are like me and wondering whether the Underground Man actually proofread his thoughts before publishing them and/or if you are at all confused during this post, feel free to comment(nicely!). I really hope that the next part of the novel will be better!

Mind the spelling error -- Dostoevsky*

Achebe and Fontana

Here is the final essay for the "Lion Project". Refer to my teacher's blog (Hawkinsanity.blogspot.com) for a prompt and background on the essay.

Stereotypes and Single Stories

Stereotypes of Jewish Athletes are depicted in the article “The Return of the Jewish Athlete” By David Fontana. Likewise, the single story of African people is portrayed in the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Through the triumphant despair of the protagonist, Okonkwo, Achebe seeks to dispel the stereotype and single story of Africans, which are typecaste to be savage, uncivilized, animalistic, and thus cannot function on their own. On the same note, Fontana disproves the stereotype of Jewish Athletes being horrible at sports in his article where he writes about Jewish Athletes and their success in the sports world .Fontana and Achebe write about both the preconceived characteristics and the unknown commendable traits of each group,  in order to provide a more complete picture

Directly challenging the stereotype of Africans, Achebe writes about the positive aspects of Okonkwo and his village. Achebe portrays the protagonist as a hard worker, a trait unexpected by the European imperialists, who thought of the native Africans as primordial and undeveloped. Achebe proclaims that “Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young men usually had. He did not inherit a barn from his father. There was no barn to inherit.”(Achebe, 16) Okonkwo is determined and hard working so that others can see his, “prosperity [that] was visible in his household.”(14). Inheriting nothing, Okonkwo achieves wealth and titles through his strong-minded and purposeful personality. Achebe emphasizes the  notable characteristics, such as the ones Okonkwo possesses, in order to augment the crude perception of African people.   

Achebe includes how the village of Umuofia is organized and at times very sophisticated. European colonials, who subscribe to the single story, think of African villages as uncivilized and uninhabitable. However, Achebe refutes by containing information about how the village operates. Mentioned in the novel that, “the nine villages of Umuofia had grown out of the nine sons of the first father of the clan. Evil Forest represented the village of Umueru, or the children of Eru, who was the eldest of the nine sons.”(Achebe, 89) The villages of Umuofia operate under a set of local, tribal rules. They even have set consequences for particular acts. Okonkwo, after accidently killing a boy, is to “flee from the clan” and “could return to the clan after seven years” (124). According to the village and the laws they have organized, if a man inadvertently kills a boy he must be exiled from the clan for seven years. By creating these laws, not only is the clan structured, but they are self-sufficiently governed.

However, no single story is completely false. Achebe highlights the unattractive features of his characters, which are more aligned with the beliefs of the Europeans. He includes the unappealing characteristics of Okonkwo and of his community, so that people are not skeptical if Achebe only provides the positive account of African people. By supporting the stereotype, Achebe is more able to effectively complete the single story. . During a week when “a man does not say a harsh word to his neighbor,” (Achebe, 30) Okonkwo beats his wife aggressively. The fault that led Okonkwo to beat Ojiguo, his wife, during a sacred week is that she did not cook an afternoon meal, as the women were supposed to do.  Full of anger, “he beat her very heavily”(29) and did not stop “even for fear of a goddess.”(30) Okonkwo’s savage and impulsive nature is outlined through his repulsive action. Even though he beat his wife harshly, there is an explanation and repercussions for his action. The deed and his ruthless character did not go unnoticed.. Achebe supports the single story of Africans by characterizing Okonkwo with savage and animalistic attributes. By creating a flawed protagonist, Achebe provides a more realistic account of the single story.

Parallel to the way Achebe is completing the single story of Africa, Fontana does the same by including both the achievements and the atrophy of Jewish athletes. Fontana introduces the article, just as Achebe started his novel, by stating the positive aspects of the group and thus challenging the stereotype. Writing, “when professional basketball was organized in the 1930s and 1940s, for instance, it was widely known as "Jew ball" because of the large and important role of Jewish players,” (Fontana, “The Return of the Jewish Athlete”) Fontana accentuates Jewish athletes’ successes, therefore contradicting the stereotype. He adds how “it was common to see Jewish boxers winning all of the major awards.” (Fontana, “The Return of the Jewish Athlete”)

In the same way that Achebe provides the negative, Fontana presents context that supports the single story. Fontana offers factual evidence to explain the absence of Jewish athletes, which is in support of the stereotype.  He states that “when disadvantaged urban communities and immigrant communities became home to smaller Jewish populations, the number of Jewish professional athletes fell.” (Fontana, “The Return of the Jewish Athlete”) Fontana believes that sports legends will come from “disadvantaged urban communities or from immigrant communities.” (Fontana, “The Return of the Jewish Athlete”) However, the destitute communities that house the professional athletes, of which many were Jewish, were diminishing and consequently the amount of Jewish athletes were too.

Both authors seek to complete the single story through the losses and the triumphs. Even though the effort to inform the masses is legitimate and substantial, Achebe concludes the novel by adding the stubbornness of the Europeans who are too ignorant to learn the whole story. . The Commissioner, an imperialist from Britain who knows little about Africa other than about the abundant resources, thinks about a “book which he planned to write” (Achebe, 208) that will be about Okonkwo’s death. In an effort to show how ignorant the Commissioner is, Achebe notes that Okonkwo’s life and death would be “a reasonable paragraph” (209) in the Commissioner’s book aptly named “The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger” (209).

By including the Commissioner’s story, Achebe notes how fragile a single story is and how quickly it can be reformed. Fontana also notices the fragility and adaptability of a stereotype through his article, “The Jewish community in the United States has been changing, and who takes the court and the field has started to change in response.”(Fontana, “The Return of the Jewish Athlete”) Achebe and Fontana, through their works set forth a complete stereotype, ultimately trying to create a permanent set of stories to represent a group.

Chinua Achebe's Yams....oh & Things Fall Apart

In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, yams, a prominent vegetable, reappear a few, times to say the least, throughout the novel.

Yams, yams, yams. What the heck is with all of these yams? In this blog post I will trace the symbolism of the yams throughout the novel(or up to Chapter 19).

I have narrowed down a few themes to which the yams connect too: wealth, power, and celebrations/gatherings. 

As far as I have read, the amount of yams and how successful your crop is controls your wealth. Okonkwo, the protagonist in the novel, gains his title and status by planting a thunderous amount of viable yams. When Okonkwo gets exiled to his "motherland", his cousins "contributed three hundred seed yams to enable thier cousin[Okonkwo] to plant a farm"(130). Basically the cousins attributed and helped Okonkwo live prosperously. This would be a great system for the United States; where we can base wealth not on the qaulity of the car you own, but on the amount and condition of yams! Instead of the Big Mac Index it would be the Big Yam Index for world wealth.
Very similar to the concept of yams correlating to wealth, they can represent power. It is often that the amount of wealth can be proportionate to the power. Also the grandeur of a yam farm represents hard work, which is perceived as a manly characteristic in this book. Might I mention, that in Things Fall Apart women get little to no recognition. It is considered mocking and is looked down upon if you are called a women, or agbala.

Every time in the novel when people are gathering at a person's obi, or house, a yam foo-foo dish is made.

Above is a picture of yam foo foo. Often accompanied by a soup, yam foo foo is a puree of yams kneaded into a dough. 

When a women would make a yam dish, it would typically mean that there was company, an event, or a ceremony going to happen. At Obierika's, a friend of Okonknwos, daughter's bride-prince ceremony, "foo-foo was pounded in a hundred wooden mortars." (113). 

For your information, the word "yam(s)" are said about 100 times in the book! Yams are the most prominent crop and  it is not a vegetable to overlook in this novel!

Ken Robinson's TED talk: "How school kills creativity"

For this blog post, we were given the task of watching a TED talk and writing thoughts we had in response to the video.

Simply, I searched ‘popular TED talks’ into Google and stumbled upon a link to a YouTube video of a TED talk called "How school kills creativity". Like any other student, I gravitated towards this video because I can use it for reasons in the future for why I don't have to go to school:  My mom would ask, "Rachael, why aren't you going to school?" and I would obviously respond, "Because my creativity is low, school is killing it" HA-HA! 

Sir Ken Robinson in this video (see below) talks passionately about how school does not promote creativity like they do mathematics or English. He says that when kids go to school they grow out of their creativity. Interesting…

He defines creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value.

One statement that stuck out to me was how he said that literacy is just as important as creativity. Later, he embellishes by stating that dance is as important as math. I love how simply,but potently he articulates those comparisons.

However much I want to agree with him, I cannot. Although I feel like some schools do put you into a cookie cutter situation of his learning hierarchy that he mentioned, the education that I have received, at least at my current school, is different.

Going to a unique private school, whose main focus is to prepare you for the future in the career path that best suits and interests you, this “dance being as important as math” statement has been a large part of the education that I receive. Proudly, I am not a dancer, or a singer, or even an actor, I play sports. The community at my school has really embraced who I am and has interlaced my talents and passions into my schoolwork. At the end of the school year, every student does a big project to show what they have accomplished in English class. The student can choose whatever topic and method to portray their work that they have done, relating to a common theme. Last year, I remember creating a presentation about the sports I play to present my work. 

I feel like the high school that I go to, does a fabulous job of embracing the creativity of students. We are allowed to follow whatever passion we may have and even do it with peer support.

Robinson did bring up other points on how the academic ability of students has engulfed our view of intelligence and I would like to end on a quote by Albert Einstein, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”