The Namesake

The next 25 pages of "The Namesake," by Jhumpa Lahiri, describes Gogol's life as an older man. At this time, Gogol has graduated, has a girlfriend named Ruth and has decided to move to New York—away from his parent's reach. While in New York, Gogol begins working, but not in the way he had imagined himself working, back when he was a student. When he meets Ruth, he becomes very surprised that her parents are nothing like his parents, something that makes him like her even more. Ruth gets much more freedom from her parents than Gogol ever did, and that truly attracts him even more as it is something he had never really experienced before. Gogol feels that being with Ruth would indeed give him that independence he had always longed for, and so he wished to live his life with her. A few months later, he notices that Ruth was not the woman he had been looking for after all, and notices that all he wanted from her was the cultural independence that she held from her family. Gogol decides to move on and continues his search for love with other women in his path.

Quote: "He prefers New York, a place which his parents do not know well, whose beauty they are blind to, which they fear."

Question: Why is Gogol so desperate to get away from his parents and separate from his culture?