“The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri (post 3): Two narrator personalities, one always calls protagonist “Gogol,” the other always calls him “Nikhil”

Chapter 10 reveals multiple personality of the narrator. 

In all other chapters (1-9 and 11-12), the narrator is characterized by the peculiar habit of always referring to the protagonist by his pet name “Gogol,” in blatant disregard of the fact that he is known and addressed as “Nikhil” by everyone outside his immediate family: He had legally changed his name from “Gogol” to “Nikhil” at age eighteen, and “Nikhil” is the name written on the top of his wedding cake at age thirty (1, p. 224).

Then, suddenly, without explanation, in Chapter 10, and only in Chapter 10, the narrator refers to the protagonist, consistently and exclusively, as “Nikhil.” Indeed, Chapter 10 almost seems like it is from a different novel, one in which the wife is the main character.

As previously discussed, multiple personality of the Gogol/Nikhil character is hinted at early in the novel, but the issue is forgotten and never developed, possibly because it became overshadowed by multiple personality of the narrator.

1. Jhumpa Lahiri. The Namesake. New York, Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003/2004.