seeks answers, and the questions that he raises brings out his heritage or ethnicity as a natural place to locate some new conception of self, a part of self that had been denied for such a long part of his life.  In the struggle for meaning and definition, Gogol approaches his own background as a potential location for where answers might reside.  While the answers do not fully materialize, Gogol recognizes the need for questions in forming one's own sense of self.  He opens up first the cultural doors, and then the psychological ones in order to fully understand his own sense of self.  Cultural plays a role in this process, but it is not one that gives all of the answers.  It is one part of a larger configuration, which makes sense because identity in the modern setting is complex enough to find its residence in multiple dwellings in which culture is merely one of many.

For a large part of the novel, Gogol denies his own identity from both personal and cultural dimensions.  He refuses to acknowledge these elements of his own notion of self, which causes an undercurrent of discontent that cannot be fully identified or understood.  Yet, it is there and Gogol does feel it.  When Gogol's father dies, there is a greater level of understanding about who he is and a desire to reconnect with who he is on both personal and cultural levels.  It is through this exploration that Gogol fully understands his own identity.  While he goes to India and falls in love with Moushumi, I think that there is a level of comfort reached when Gogol recognizes that he is able to feel at home in India with Indian culture as well as that part of his identity.  While the relationship dies, the comfort is still there, for it is this that allows him to embrace his name and his own father's beliefs in him.  For Gogol, it seems that acceptance of race and cultural identity is the first step to embracing his true sense of self.