Bharati Mukherjee Essay, Research Paper
Bharati Mukherjee was born on July 27, 1940 in Calcutta, India. (Pradhan ) She was born into a wealthy family, which assisted her in her dream of becoming a writer. She lived in India, Europe, the United States, and Canada. Migrating to these countries that are so different from her place of birth enabled her to write very powerful novels on immigrant experiences. Mukherjee’s novels focus on exploring the migration and the feeling of alienation that is experienced by these immigrants. (Pradhan) Her works have explored such themes as isolation, sexism, discrimination, the mistreatment of Indian women, and exploring identities.
In Bharati Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine, the character shows some similarities to the author, but there are many differences. Both were born in India, but Jasmine was not born into wealth. Jasmine does not have the same resources as Bharati, so it is harder for her to leave her home and to migrate to the United States. One of the similarities between Jasmine and the author is their drive to go after what they want and to not stop until they get it. Bharati’s drive is to become a writer, and Jasmine’s is to go to the United States. Another similarity is their struggle to find their identity when they migrate to the United States. This is one of the major themes in Jasmine.
One important aspect about the novel Jasmine is that it is not written in chronological order. The novel is written as though the main character is remembering events out of sequence. The author employed this method of writing quite efficiently. It was not entirely confusing and it set a mood of anticipation of what is to come.
The novel starts out when Jasmine is a young girl in India. She is consulting an astrologer who tells her that bad times are on the way. Then all of a sudden she is 24-years-old and living in Iowa. The author leaves years of the main characters to the imagination until later on in the novel. Here we meet characters that will not appear again until later in the novel.
The novel then goes backward into time to explore Jasmine’s earlier years. These years were filled with poverty, violence, and even death. Although Jasmine does not have a very good life, she does not seem to mind perhaps because it is all that she knows. She does take an early interest in learning English. This may be evidence that she did desire a better or perhaps different life.
Early on in Jasmine’s life, it is apparent that she is a fighter. The first incident occurred during the ladies’ daily ritual of going to the bathroom in the fields. When Jasmine hears a growl, she thinks to herself “let it come, I had the staff.” When the doglike creature jumps out at the women, they begin to scream and scamper about. It is Jasmine who stands up to the creature with her staff. This is just the first incident in which Jasmine proves to be a fighter.
The next part of the novel is basically about Jasmine trying to find a husband as she is expected to do. She eventually finds a husband, Prakash, who intends to move to the United States. This is where Jasmine has to make a life altering decision. She did not wish to leave her home in India, but she loved her husband and wanted him to be happy. She decides that she will go with him, but they never make the trip together. Prakash was murdered before he got to realize his dream. Jasmine decides that she will go to the United States for him and burn his work uniform. The novel implies that Jasmine had planned on burning herself also, but this does not happen. Jasmine’s arrival in America is the beginning of her metamorphoses as an immigrant
While in America, Jasmine is at times a struggling victim. When she first arrives, she is brutally raped by a man that she had no choice but to trust. She takes matters into her own hands and murders him. At this point, she may be a victim, but she is not willing to allow anybody to stand in her way of her purpose. She gets shipped from household to household, usually being forced into being a caregiver. Although she did not seem to mind this, she still did not have much of a choice. It does not seem as though Jasmine sees herself as a victim, but she knows that there is something better out there.
Jasmine can also be looked at as someone who has assimilated herself into becoming an American. She takes her Indian values and way of life with her to America, only to becoming assimilated into the American way of life. After her husband’s murder, it was expected of Jasmine to not get remarried. Although she does not remarry, she maintains a committed relationship with Bud, and she also carries his child. This is evidence that she is steering further away from her Indian values.
Someone may say that Jasmine is about a victim struggling in America or that it is about an immigrant who has assimilated herself into becoming an American. I think it is a little bit of both. I think that the main theme of this novel is exploring identities. Jasmine’s struggle in America and her immigrant experience force her to explore within herself and to discover what she is capable of doing in life. Jasmine has many stages in her life. Even her name changes throughout the novel, becoming more American, which corresponded to the stages in her life. Jasmine went through a metamorphoses in this novel in which she had to suffer many terrible and some wonderful events in order to become the person that she is at the end of the novel when she leaves Bud to be with Taylor.