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The role of women has gradually changed over the course of time. From caregivers and homemakers, women have risen above the challenge to become leading figures in the corporate industry. Novels such as The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles depict the struggles that women go through on a daily basis and what they have had to do to overcome such challenges. The following essay will highlight the role of women in society and depict the myriad of issues facing women in the three aforementioned novels. One of the most visible roles assigned to women in The Namesake is that of caregivers. Jhumpa Lahiri’s book presents women as people who are assigned the duty of taking care of not only their children but those around them as well, including family and even friends. The best example is the mother figure character who is Ashima Ganguli. She is the mother of Gogol and Sonia and does everything that is humanly possible to care for the two when they are young and even when they have grown older. When the novel first begins, Gogol, her first-born son has not yet been born. When she gives birth to him, both she and her husband affectionately name him Gogol after the Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol before his grandmother can officially call him. Again, that duty of caregiving is illustrated in the way children are named. According to Bengali tradition, only a respected elder could name a child. In this particular instance, the grandmother was chosen to fulfill that role. It is a role that was so important that no one else could do it and the child would have remained without an official name had the
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