Why do people of a certain country and culture want to pack up and leave to a different country to where the language, culture, and people are completely different? Is it because they are being persecuted and the only way out is to flea? Is it because they feel that the only way to a better life is that they must leave everything they know, love, and have in order to make something for themselves? Or is it just because they want to be adventurous and live in a culture that totally defies theirs? No matter what the reason is there are millions of immigrant throughout the world that has made that choice and has even changed their traditional viewsand cultural to the ways of their new country.
In the novel Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee, the main character, Jasmine, leaves her small Indian village for a completely different life in America. Jasmine was born in a hut in Hasnapur, Punjab, India, during a plenty full harvest year. Daughters are known as curses to the family and leave them penniless. She was the fifth daughter, the seventh of nine children. Jasmine was a bright girl and had three more years of school compared to her sisters. At the age of seven, an astrologer told her that her fate was set and she willed be widowed and exiled. Now at the age of 24, she is pregnant and is running off from New York to Iowa. Jasmine has fallen into the American dream and lost cultural identity but has also revamped herself with new positive identities.
Jasmine has lost her cultural identities in many ways. For example, her father did not marry her off like they traditionally do. She is pregnant by a 55 year farmer that is half her age. He wants to get married “officially” before the baby is born. Also, Bud, the father to her child, is not from the Indian nationality. With only being fifty pages into the novel, I can only make an assumption, but I believe that Jasmine does not want too much to do with her past culture. This is because she was the fifth girl born in her family, the astrologer already told her of her ill fate, and there is not potential future for her there.
On the other hand is also believes that she revamps herself with new positive identities. Jasmine first name was Jyoti Uinh when she was Punjabi. Later Bud gives her the name Jane Ripplemeyer and later Jasmine. She has accepted the American name of Jane given to her by Bud. She understands that she is in America and is trying to be loyal to her new country by accepting our culture. She is also the mother to Du, an adopted boy from Asia. Not only is she marrying a man that is much older and not of the same race, she is also accepting to mother a child that is also of a different race. She is showing care and compassion in the same way that America has shown it to her.
I am a firm believer that America is the land of the free and everybody has an equal opportunity. I feel that it is good that our country has a diverse sense of cultures. Jasmine came to America to better and change herself for the good.
2 comments on Identity Change
Add a comment
To add comments without entering your email and image verification, you must be logged in. Login or Join Blogster
Great article. The break down of the book so far is very thorough. I also agree with your point of view that she is accepting American culture and trying to pass what she has learned on to Du. You're right about Americans having equal opportunity and I think Jasmine or Jane would believe that as well.