Namesake

Throughout the novel the characters all struggle with feeling isolated. Ashima feels the effect and impact of a distant family perhaps the most of any other character. In a passage, Ashoke describes his wife's unhappiness. She presses, "'I'm saying I don't want to raise Gogol alone in this country. It's not right. I want to go back'"(Lahiri 33). Ashima desires to go back to India so that she is surrounded by her family, especially at a time when the family should be the liveliest, upon the birth of a new member. She is struggling to remain Indian and hold on to her traditions, but in this case it seems impossible since her family cannot come to her support in America. Gogol won't be surrounded by his grandmother, he wasn't even named by her. Ashoke's experiences are described, "On more than one occasion he has come home from university to find her morose, in bed, rereading her parents' letters. Early mornings, when he senses that she is quietly crying, he puts an arm around her but can think of nothing to say" (33). Ashima's connection with India is becoming more noticeable as she tries to assimilate into a new, foreign world. She isn't ready to let go of anything she has left behind in India, parents, grandparents, aunt, uncles, cousins, and siblings. This often times leads her to weep in her bedroom reminiscing to times when she didn't need to start over in a new world. Ashima's struggles are both personal, as she misses her family, and cultural for her heritage is slowly diminishing as the family starts to adopt a more American lifestyle.

TFA 1-7 Blog

     Achebe tries to provide the other story, the story that remains untold about the Africans and their culture before European influence. This side of the story is often unknown, but Achebe makes it hard to overlook the vastly different viewpoint that this story provides. In a passage, he describes how conversation was such an art in the village of Umuofia. They preach about proverbs, and how the ones who excelled in conversation were held in a higher regard (Achebe 7). The typical "one story" that is told is that these Africans are illiterate and uncivilized. However, if something such as speech is held in such a high regard it indicates the importance of intelligence and wisdom in the village. This shows that these villagers are not uncivilized as most people assume them to be. They value similar things, and Achebe makes that point when he draws these important similarities between the two cultures.

Final Paragraph

Sometimes the extreme challenges and situations that a person is placed in can impact their perspective of life overall, like when Hamlet is so depressed that he is contemplating suicide. This is evident when he exclaims, "To be or not to be- that is the question:/ whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,' or to take arms against a sea of troubles/ and, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep-" (Shakespeare II.i.64-68). If Hamlet is in a place where he is seriously considering killing himself, he is definitely not stable emotionally and mentally. Therefore, his logic cannot be trusted. It is tragic that a mind capable of making normal choices based off of a reasonable logic is affected in such a way that even the darkest of thoughts, like suicide, is considered. He even questions if it is more "noble" to suffer in the mind than actually face problems. His life is in the hands of his unstable mind, which is a tragic situation. His lack of logic is killing him on the inside since he could be the cause of his own death if  he chooses suicide. However, it is not only his logic that was changed for the worse, but his desires where altered as well.