Question

Read the excerpts from The Namesake. Excerpt 1: He is afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesn’t know. Who doesn’t know him. His parents tell him that they each have two names, too, as do all their Bengali friends in America, and all their relatives in Calcutta. It’s a part of growing up, they tell him, part of being a Bengali. Excerpt 2: It is nothing like the schooling Gogol’s parents have known, fountain pens and polished black shoes and notebooks and good names and sir or madam at a tender age. Here the only official ritual is pledging allegiance first thing in the morning to the American flag. Which statement best tells how the main conflict in the first excerpt is different from the main conflict in the second excerpt? The first shows an external conflict related to emotion, while the second shows an internal conflict related to cultural differences. The first shows an internal conflict related to emotion, while the second shows an external conflict related to cultural differences. The first shows a global conflict related to cultural differences, while the second shows a personal conflict related to family dynamics. The first shows a global conflict related to family dynamics, while the second shows a personal conflict related to cultural differences.

Answer 1

The first excerpt from The Namesake depicts an internal conflict related to emotion, whereas the second excerpt shows an external conflict related to cultural differences.

Step-by-step explanation:

The main conflict in the first excerpt from The Namesake is an internal conflict related to emotion. The protagonist, Nikhil, is afraid to be himself and doesn't know who he really is. This creates an internal struggle for him. On the other hand, the main conflict in the second excerpt is an external conflict related to cultural differences. The protagonist, Gogol, is faced with a different schooling system in America that is vastly different from what his parents are familiar with in India. This external conflict between cultural differences shapes his experiences.

Answer 2

The statement that best tells how the main conflict in the first excerpt is different from the main conflict is "The first shows an internal conflict related to emotion, while the second shows an external conflict related to cultural differences".

The Namesake is a novel written by Jhumpa Lahiri. It tells the story of a Bengali couple who moves to the United States and the way in which they deal with the social and religious differences between the two cultures. The first excerpt presents an internal conflict related to an emotion because the character is struggling against his own thoughts and mainly against his fear of being Nikhil. On the other hand, the second excerpt shows an external conflict related to cultural differences because the narrator is referring to the dissimilarities between the American and the Bengali culture in terms of education. In other words, in contrast to the first excerpt, the second excerpt is making reference to an outside force.