
The Namesake: Techniques of diasporic literature
Quiz by Scott Darnell
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Weigh up the significance of how Lahiri presents and describes food in The Namesake.
Lahiri was born in London in the 1960s. Despite this, how did her parents want her to be brought up?
What genre is The Namesake?
Why is it a diasporic novel?
Categorise the 7 features of diasporic and non-diasporic literature.
What is unique about the dialogues in The Namesake.
Unjumble the the words to form the answer.
Why does Lahiri use culture and language is powerfully in the dialogues?
Through dialogues, Lahiri exemplifies which difference between Indians and Americans?
Food and clothes drive the diasporic narrative forward. There are examples of symbolism.
Place these typical food items in their categories. They are presented in the novel to demarcate the cultural differences.
Focalisation is a technique used in the novel to add meaning.
If focalisation is a technique used to show how the events are seen and interpreted, which of the following are examples in The Namesake?
Another example of focalisation in The Namesake is...
Lahiri uses a type of external focalisation in the novel. How?
Gogol is described as inheriting Ashima's large, penetrating eyes and elegant brows with a slight bump on his nose like Ashoke (around p.30).
The novel has a unique narrative structure because...
Which technique does Lahiri use to demonstrate how all elements of the narrative (plot, characters and themes) are connected, even though at times they may seem disconnected from one another.
Lahiri fragments the narrative in The Namesake through her use of...
An example of flashbacks and/or prolepsis....
Another narrative technique used in The Namesake is called... (begins with the letter A).
Allusion, in literature, an explicit or direct reference to a person, event, or thing or to a part of another text.
A typical allusion that Lahiri makes is...
The Namesake's narrative runs parallel to an allusion to a story about a Russian man who, at first is content with his life, and then begins to question his identity.
Why is The Overcoat so symbolic in The Namesake?
"With a slight quiver of recognition, as if he'd known it all along, the perfect pet name for his son occurs to Ashoke... 'Gogol' he repeats, satisfied"
"He thought that the sin might perhaps lie with the overcoat". This quote refers to Gogol. What is its significance?
Metonymic objects are not used in The Namesake to create associations with Gogol's identity.
The metonymic objects in The Namesake help Gogol feels connected to his Indian origins. Categorise the following according to whether they are metonymic or non-metonymic in the novel.
A basic narrative device which is used in The Namesake is...
Categorise the following into examples of parallelism and not parallelism in The Namesake.
How are Gogol and Moushumi demonstrating paralellism?
How does parallelism help the reader to make deeper sense of the narrative in terms of Ashima's significance?
What makes The Namesake one of the most successful diasporic novels?