11/11/10
Unfair Blame in Chapter 10's Sticky Situation
I turned on the television tonight after work to watch an episode of “The Office” before starting my homework, and by shocking coincidence “The Chump” episode was playing. In this episode Michael discovers that his girlfriend Donna has a husband and he struggles throughout the episode with defending his actions, and then finally realizes his shame and breaks it off with her at the end. This seemed a little too relevant to chapter 10 of The Namesake to not blog about how this made me realize how our class discussion today overlooked the fault of Dimitri in the unfaithful situation. After writing our journal about our current perceptions of Moushumi, I found myself, like most other people in our class, thoroughly frustrated and disgusted by her actions and decisions throughout the chapter. After watching this episode of “The Office” though, I realized how half of this frustration should become more focused on Dimitri, and I became angry at Lahiri’s minimal involvement of details on this minor, yet extremely integral, character. Most of our hatred towards Moushumi seems justified because of her betrayal of the main character in this story, but a portion of this detest becomes skewed unfairly to her due to the lack of details about Dimitri. The reader overlooks the “man who is enabling her to wreck her marriage” and his fault in the whole situation (266). This realization actually made me loathe Moushumi a little less as some of the disapproval I felt towards her shifted to Dimitri and his revolting apathy towards ruining Moushumi’s life. Though Moushumi makes this choice to cheat on Gogol, I now realize that Dimitri also plays a role in her unfaithfulness. Unlike Michael from “The Office”, Dimitri continues the affair without question, indirectly characterizing him as inconsiderate and impulsive. I believe that both these characters deserve equal reproach, and Lahiri makes this nearly impossible by focusing the entire chapter on Moushumi, while barely mentioning any background information about Dimitri. This makes my hatred seem biased and I wish that the author chose to better distribute the blame by giving equal details on both Moushumi and Dimitri.
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You make an interesting point, Carolyn. I guess I feel more resentment towards Moushumi because she is the one who is directly responsible for Gogol's feelings. I guess I also find it difficult to hate Dimitri because Gogol did the exact same thing to Bridgit without feeling much guilt. I do not mean that he deserves it, but I assume that Dimitri does not really think about Gogol, just like he did not think about Bridgit's husband (190).
ReplyDeleteCarolyn, I definitely agree that Dimitri deserves some resentment for his role in the affair. I think another reason that we found ourselves blaming Moushumi more than Dimitri is because none of us expected it from her. On the other hand, it seems to fit Dimitri's personality, Lahiri writes "his expression had not changed" when Moushumi admitted she has a husband (264). I agree that Dimitri is an inconsiderate person.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn, I agree with you that Dimitri's role in betraying Gogol's trust gets overlooked in chapter 10. I like your parallel between Dimitri and Michael Scott's relationships with married women, as well as the contrast in the way they handle the situation. Although Moushumi deserves more blame than Dimitri, Dimitri should receive more criticism than portrayed in chapter 10.
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