Throughout the novel, The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol is in constant motion and, by the time he is almost thirty years old, he has already lived in five different houses, while his mother, Ashima, has only lived in five homes her entire life. Every time Gogol moves, he moves away from his childhood home on Pemberton Road, symbolizing his search for identity and his desire to distance himself from his family and Bengali culture. Alternatively, Ashima's change of home occurs to get closer to her family, representing her kinship with Bengali culture. Ashima has always had difficulty doing things on her own, but at the end of the story she decides to travel to both India and the United States without a real home due to her evolving independence and breaking her borders; on the contrary, Gogol finally realizes that he has always remained close to home, despite his desire to escape, and adapts to his newly discovered identity, the one he has always possessed. Throughout the novel, Ashima and Gogol have opposite perspectives of their lives. view of “home”. At first, while Ashima focuses on family and prefers to stay close to her Bengali culture, Gogol's only desire is to become independent and distance himself from his Bengali culture. These desires for independence and to have a traditional, close-knit family guide Ashima and Gogol's decisions and visions of home. While Ashima focuses on family, Gogol continues his quest to become fully independent and escape from his home and the clutches of his pushy, traditionalist parents. After living in New Haven for a few years, Gogol decides to move to New York. His reasons for moving to New York are mainly because... middle of paper......mission leads Gogol to discover his true identity. Although he has always felt he had to find a new identity, more American and ordinary, he has come to the conclusion that he will always be the Gogol closest to his family. As Gogol comes to this understanding, Ashima has finally freed herself from dependence on her family and has become “borderless” (176). No longer the isolated and insecure Bengali she was when she arrived at Cambridge, Ashima has been freed from dependency and helplessness to become self-responsible. Her husband's passing forced her to live her life as a more self-sufficient person, while still being able to maintain her daily Indian customs. This turning point is the final point of Ashima's evolution towards personal freedom and independence. Works Cited Lahiri, Jhumpa. The namesake. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. Print.