In class today: review of chapter 4
responding to a quote from chapter 4 (class handout / copy below)
When you have finished begin chapter 5, pages 97 to 124. We will finish chapter 5 tomorrow. You need to have read through chapter 6 by Monday, pages 125-128.
Responses to chapter 4 content questions
The Namesake Chapter
4 – 1982 pages 72-96 Name______________________
Please
respond to the following content based questions from chapter 4, weaving in
textual evidence and citing the page number. Write your responses on a
separately lined sheet of paper.
- How many people
come to Gogol’s 14th birthday party? Where do they come from?
Gogol had two parties, one for “his own friends
from school [who] were invited the previous day” (72) and a Bengali celebration
that was held “on the closet Saturday to his birth” (72). The latter was for forty friends and “another excuse for his
parents to throw a party for their Bengali friends”(72).
2. What is Gogol’s
passion at this age? What has he posted on the bulletin board in his room?
Gogol is a “passionate devotee of [the Beatles] John, Paul, George
and Ringo.” (74)
3. What book does his
father give him for his birthday? Why doesn’t Gogol have an interest in
this book? What has his father told him about his name? Why hasn’t
Ashoke told him the whole truth, especially on this very important
birthday? Where does Gogol believe his father’s limp comes from?
Why doesn’t Gogol like his name at this point in his life?
His father gives in “The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol”, but he
would have preferred “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy…or even another copy
of The Hobbit” (75). Gogol has never been told about his father’s accident, and
“he thinks his father’s limp is the consequence of an injury playing soccer in
his teens” (75). Gogol hates his name, because it is “both absurd and obscure,
that it has nothing to do with who he is’ (76). To him, his name lacks dignity or
gravity” (76).
4. Why does the family go to Calcutta, India for eight months?
Ashoke received a sabbatical. Ashoke tells the guidance counselor
that they “have no relatives in this country [and] that is why [they] are going
to India” (79).
5. How does the family’s meal order on the plane reflect the “two
cultures” traveling together?
Only two “Hindi meals” are ordered.
6. What adjustments do Gogol and Sonia have to make in their life
in Calcutta?
The children must sleep “under a mosquito net” and “they spend
eight months living with various relatives.”
Gogol is unable to “keep up with cross-country training” [because of]
cracked, congested, chock-a-block streets”(83).
7. What effect does the family’s visit to the Taj Mahal have on
Gogol?
Gogol is haunted by the legend that “after after the Taj was
completed, each of the builders, twenty-two thousand men, had his thumbs cut
off so that the structure could never be built again”(85).
8. How does the train trip back to Calcutta remind Ashoke of his
previous mishap on a train?
Bad luck happens on the train ride back. Sonia’s mouth swells after
eating a piece of jackfruit, “a business man in another compartment in stabbed
and “robbed of three hundred thousand rupees,” (86) which meant that the train
had to stop for five hours.
9. After the family’s return to the States, what book does Mr. Lawson,
the English teacher, assign to the class? How does Mr. Lawson’s account of
Nikolai Gogol’s life affect Gogol?
Mr. Lawson assigns the class to read Nicolai Gogol’s “The Overcoat”.
“Each time the name is uttered, [Gogol] quietly winces.
10. Why don’t Ashima and Ashoke find it strange that Gogol doesn’t
date?
While Gogol suffers “quiet crushes”, but his parents do not think
it odd that he does not date, as “they have never been on a date in their lives
and therefore they see no reason to encourage Gogol”(93).
___________________________________________________
Name______________________________ chapter 4, working with a quote
Read the following selection from the novel, and
then respond to the question that follows in a minimum of 100 words. Make sure
to allude to specific situations within text. You need not quote. However, you
will need to have read chapter 4 to respond. Write
your response on this sheet, using both sides as needed. Please be mindful of
grammar, capitalization and punctuation.
“Of all the people who surround them at practically all times, Sonia
is his only ally, the only person to speak and sit and see as he does.
While the rest of the household sleeps, he and Sonia fight over the Walkman,
over the melting collection of tapes Gogol recorded back in his room at
home. From time to time, they privately admit to excruciating cravings,
for hamburgers or a slice of pepperoni pizza or a cold glass of milk” (84).
How can your sibling, the one you fight and quarrel with
throughout childhood, be your closest friend in the world? How do Sonia
and Gogol realize the allegiance they have to each other when they spend eight
months in India?
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