In "The Namesake," in what ways does Gogol's sense of self change and evolve because of his culture throughout the story?

I think that Gogol's identity changes in large part due to
his culture because it represents an aspect of his consciousness that has yet to be
fully explored.  Gogol is a character that defines himself in stark opposition to his
family.  Part of this definition against "the other" involves suppressing any notion of
his cultural identity.  Gogol is raised as a prototypical second generation child, born
in the West, and while there is a cultural attachment to another background, it is in
name only.  Gogol definition in opposition to his family makes his heritage collateral
damage in this process.  Gogol ends up suppressing this portion of his own identity. 
When he struggles to find meaning in the world after his father's death, doors of
questioning begin to open and one such portal is to his own heritage, a part of his
identity that had been repressed for so long.  Gogol 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.