How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy – a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. (3.3)
Intense, right? It almost sounds as if she is a ghost, hovering between a "previous life" and "something more complicated." Do you think Ashima ever manages to get out of this state? Does the burden ever lift?
Quote #5
For reasons he cannot explain or necessarily understand, these ancient Puritan spirits, these very first immigrants to America, these bearers of unthinkable, obsolete names, have spoken to him, so much so that in spite of his mother's disgust he refuses to throw the rubbings away.
The young Gogol finds comfort in the odd names he finds in the Puritan graveyard. Maybe they help him feel a little less foreign. Or maybe they help him realize that just about everyone is foreign in America.
Quote #6
Within minutes, before their eyes Ashoke and Ashima slip into bolder, less complicated versions of themselves, their voices louder, their smiles wider, revealing a confidence Gogol and Sonia never see on Pemberton Road. (4.31)
In a reversal, when they are in India, it is Gogol and Sonia who feel foreign and different, while Ashoke and Ashima are totally at home (and yet a bit foreign to their children, who are surprised to see their change). But do Gogol and Sonia feel completely at home anywhere, even in the United States? It's possible that their situation is even tougher than that of their parents, because they don't belong in America or in India.