Question 1

“Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it.” Chapter 1

Accepted Answer

The pillow and blanket symbolise the migration, security and comfort of the Ganguli's homeland.

Answer

Ashoke and Ashima prepare to explore the world and travel to America.

Answer

The quote demonstrates how tired and exhausted Ashoke is.

Answer

There is no IKEA in India, so Ashoke needs to make sure that his wife has all her comfort objects.

Question 2

“My grandfather says that's what books are for," Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hands.

Finish the rest of the quote as said by Ashoke in Chapter 1.

Accepted Answer

"To travel without moving an inch.”

Answer

"To travel is like going on a plane but not a train."

Answer

"To travel without your passport is not good."

Answer

"To travel without moving an centimetre."

Question 3

“And then the young woman tells her that the patient, Ashoke Ganguli, her husband, has expired. Expired. A word used for library cards, for magazine subscriptions. ”

This quote refers to Ashoke's passport running out of validity.

Accepted Answer

false

Answer

true

Question 4

“And then the young woman tells her that the patient, Ashoke Ganguli, her husband, has expired. Expired. A word used for library cards, for magazine subscriptions. ”

Accepted Answer

'Expired' symbolises Ashoke's death.

Answer

Lahiri conveys Ashoke's death .

Answer

A young woman has died at the hospital.

Answer

Ashoke has passed away.

Question 5

In chapter 7, we learn that for Ashima, Ashoke is everything: husband, father to her two children. He is the person who organized things around the home, performed the chores, earned the majority of the family’s income. Why is the description of his death so dramatic and heart-rendering: "Ashoke Ganguli, her husband, has expired. Expired."

Accepted Answer

Ashoke is the reason that Ashima has come to the United States in the first place, for she followed her husband out of a sense of a wife’s duty, even though she was terrified of leaving Calcutta.

Answer

Ashoke is the reason that Ashima likes peanut butter and adapts the the American way of cooking. When his life 'expires', she cannot handle the fact that she will have to cook with white rice.

Answer

Ashoke is the reason that Ashima was left alone to suffer in America, for she followed her husband out of a sense of a wife’s duty, even though she wanted to return to India.

Answer

Ashoke helped the family to adapt to America and to give them a sense of identity in a foreign. It is thanks to Ashoke's 'expiration' that Gogol can feel settled and at home, whilst Ashima continues to struggle.

Question 6

Categorise the portrayal of Ashima based on the following quote:

“And then the young woman tells her that the patient, Ashoke Ganguli, her husband, has expired. Expired. A word used for library cards, for magazine subscriptions. ”

Question 7

The description of Ashoke's deaths as 'expired' is effective because it helps to depict...

Accepted Answer

the idea that living alone in America will be unbearable for Ashima as 'expired' sounds too clinical.

Answer

life with a happy start and but with sudden end.

Answer

the way Lahiri had experience of being rejected at an airport because her passport had 'expired'.

Answer

how much Ashoke loved reading books.

Question 8

Still analysing the description of Ashoke's death as 'expired', unjumble the words to evaluate the effect of Lahiri's word choice:

Accepted Answer

Ashima, feels, that, in America, death, is, an, impersonal, event, unlike, in, India.

Question 9

Another example of how the 'expiry' of Ashoke demonstrates Ashima's attitude towards America is when...

Accepted Answer

Gogol goes on a school trip to a graveyard, and makes an etching of a gravestone.

Answer

Gogol goes to live with Maxine and tries to integrate with an American family.

Answer

Joe Biden makes every immigrant do a belly dance in order to get US citizenship.

Answer

Moushimi rejects the idea of being a traditional Indian wife.

Question 10

Lahiri's portrayal of the perceived strangeness of American attitudes toward dying reinforces...

Accepted Answer

Ashima's sense of 'foreignness'.

Answer

The reason why American's celebrate Halloween.

Answer

Gogol's struggle with his identity.

Answer

Their morbid and perverse customs.

Question 11

Identity the phrase which is used as a motif throughout the novel (see the additional support sheet for example quotes).

Accepted Answer

one hand

Answer

one cookie

Answer

one love

Answer

one snow

Question 12

“At every turning point in his life—at his wedding when he stood behind Ashima, encircling her waist and peering over her shoulder as they poured puffed rice into a fire, or during his first hours in America, seeing a small gray city caked with snow—

he has tried but failed to push these images away.” Chapter 1

Accepted Answer

Lahiri uses a motif.

Answer

Lahiri uses parallelism.

Answer

Lahiri uses juxtaposition.

Answer

Lahiri uses powerful words.

Question 13

Which of the following quotes depict Gogol's cultural insecurities as he struggles to know whether he is American or Indian?

Accepted Answer

“One January morning, the week after Christmas vacation [...] watches a thin, sugary snow fall inconsistently from the sky.” Chapter 4

Answer

“she'd had her first real glimpse of America: Leafless trees with ice-covered branches. Dog urine and excrement embedded in the snowbanks. Not a soul on the street.” Chapter 2

Answer

“Mrs. Jones leads a life that Ashoke's mother would consider humiliating: eating alone, driving herself to work in snow and sleet, seeing her children and grandchildren, at most, three or four times a year.” Chapter 3

Answer

“In the dark, through the windows of the taxi,wide awake from jet lag, she could barely make out a thing, apart from heaps of broken snow glowing like shattered, bluish white bricks on the ground.” Chapter 2

Question 14

“He is aware that his parents, and their friends, and the children of their friends, and all his own friends from high school, will never call him anything but Gogol.”

Accepted Answer

In Chapter 5, after Gogol officially changes his name in court.

Answer

Ashoke has 'expired' and Gogol wants to remember his name.

Answer

Gogol is about to go off to university.

Answer

The 'good name' will never arrive.

Question 15

Gogol remains insecure about legally certifying his name.

Accepted Answer

true

Answer

false

Question 16

“He is aware" What does this signify to the reader?

Accepted Answer

Gogol remains Gogol to those around him. Names, Gogol realizes, are much more than indicators of one’s self.

Answer

It signifies that Gogol is aware of life and death.

Answer

Lahiri wants to make us question who we are and what are names are for.

Answer

Gogol knows about himself, who he is and where he comes from. Gogol is Gogol.

Question 17

For his parents and sister, Gogol is a name of family intimacy and....

Accepted Answer

love

Question 18

For friends at school, Gogol is hard to say, an amusing change from some of the more “common” names people encounter in Boston-area high schools.

Accepted Answer

false

Answer

true

Question 19

‘There’s no such thing as a perfect name. I think that human beings should be allowed to name themselves when they turn eighteen, ’he adds. ‘Until then, pronouns.’ Chapter 9

In Chapter 9, Gogol, says this to

Accepted Answer

Moushimi and her friends

Answer

Maxine and Moushimi

Answer

Ashoke and Ashima

Answer

Sonia

Question 20

How does Gogol feel at first when Moushimi, his wife, reveals his name change?

Accepted Answer

Humiliated

Answer

Sexually frustrated

Answer

Hopeful

Answer

Bashful

Question 21

Regarding the previous question, explain the significance of a name.

Accepted Answer

Gogol feels that Moushumi is making fun of him in front of her friends, perhaps making it seem that she is more like “them” than like her own Bengali-American husband.

Answer

Gogol feels that Moushumi is a good-humoured wife, perhaps making it seem that she is more like “them” than like her own Bengali-American husband.

Answer

Gogol feels that Moushumi is insecure about her own name, perhaps making it seem that she is more like “them” than like her own Bengali-American husband.

Answer

Gogol feels that Moushumi doesn't truly love him, perhaps making it seem that she is more like “them” than like her own Bengali-American husband.

Question 22

“In a few minutes he will go downstairs, join the party, his family. But for now his mother is distracted, laughing at a story a friend is telling her, unaware of her son’s absence. For now, he starts to read.” - chapter 12

Accepted Answer

Gogol, at the close of Chapter 12, picks up The Stories of Nikolai Gogol, and the narrator closes the book with these lines.

Answer

The narrative and identity struggles will continue even though the story has come to an end.

Answer

Gogol wants to read like his father and that is a way to integrate into American culture.

Answer

The narrator shows the reader that Gogol has adapted to American culture and their party ways.

Question 23

The following is an acceptable analysis of the previous quote:

'For now, he starts to read' is an effective way to end the novel conveying so much about family and individual growth, about one’s relation to the past and to the future.

Accepted Answer

true

Answer

false

Question 24

“In a few minutes he will go downstairs, join the party, his family. But for now his mother is distracted, laughing at a story a friend is telling her, unaware of her son’s absence. For now, he starts to read.” - chapter 12

Accepted Answer

Gogol has, by this point in the novel, realized his obligations to his mother and his sister.

Answer

The ending is like a flashback to the train crash when Ashoke was reading.

Answer

Gogol has discovered that he will always have a homogeneous identity.

Answer

Ashima realises that she can live without Ashoke and integrate fully.

Question 25

“In a few minutes he will go downstairs, join the party, his family. But for now his mother is distracted, laughing at a story a friend is telling her, unaware of her son’s absence. For now, he starts to read.” - chapter 12

What makes Gogol's return 'home' such a memorable and moving way to end the novel?

Accepted Answer

All options are credible.

Answer

Ashima realizes how much the Pemberton Road house has meant to her and to the family over the years.

Answer

Gogol seems genuinely excited about celebrating one final Christmas with his mother at Pemberton Road.

Answer

Ashima, for her part, is ready to move on to a new stage of her life.

Question 26

"For now, he starts to read." Represents Gogol finding a distraction - something other than thinking about his identity.

Accepted Answer

All options are credible.

Answer

It has been a difficult past year, as he is still reeling from his divorce. He is trying, as he has throughout the novel, to understand who he is and what he wants.

Answer

Gogol “talks” to his father the only way he can: by reading the book his father gave him, years ago.

Answer

Although his professional life is largely secure, his relationship has dissolved. His father is no longer alive to communicate with him.

Question 27

By reading the books, in solitude, after the party, Gogol can

Accepted Answer

learn, more, about, his, father

Question 28

“In a few minutes he will go downstairs, join the party, his family." What do the words symbolise here?

Accepted Answer

Ashoke's love and devotion for the 'sake' of Gogol and his family.

Answer

Even though Ashoke has 'expired', the family can still enjoy a party.

Answer

Family is life and soul of every party.

Answer

Gogol is taking his time to find his true identity.

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