When my great grandfather immigrated to America he changed his name. He wanted to create an American version of himself. He believed the path to obtaining the American dream would be less rocky if he tried his best to blend in and assimilate. In the novel Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee the Main character goes through several self-transformations. Starting out in India as Jyoti a young free spirited girl, then becoming Jasmine the loving wife, transforming yet again into Jase the mildly saucy New York nanny, and finally Jane Ripplemeyer a mother and bank teller in Iowa. Through out the novel Jasmine is constantly shifting between identities, some shifts are made in order to survive while other shifts are caused by new freedoms. The reader must examine how these shifts in identity change Jasmine. Is she losing her cultural identity or are these reinventions of self something positive.
She was first Jyoti then Jasmine and finally Jane Ripplemeyer. With each name change came a different way of life, new surroundings, and self-reinvention. Jasmine is like a paper doll, the core cutout always remains the same but the applied exterior is quickly and easily changed. When Jasmine was Jyoti she was a fairly traditional girl living in Hasnapur, Jullundhar District, Punjab, India. Even though her birth name means light, Jasmine believes she was already Jane the survivor after almost dying due to an umbilical cord entanglement at birth. (Jasmine, P 40) Upon marrying Prakash, Jyoti becomes Jasmine. This new woman is comparative to what she describes as Prakash’s idea of Love, “love was letting go. Independence, self reliance” (Jasmine, P 76). This is who she had to become. Calling her husband by his first name, becoming a modern woman in the city, letting go of thousands of years of tradition. But Jyoti/Jasmine doesn’t completely abandon her past identity; she describes herself as shuttling between the two (Jasmine, P 77). So it can be said that she’s discovered the floating world.
Jasmine is not the only one in the novel who’s forced into the floating world. Her adopted son Du also faces self-reinvention; after surviving a refugee camp in Vietnam, and then being transplanted into Baden, Iowa, Du has seen, heard, and experience things most adults can’t even fathom, let alone a high school student. In order to survive Du must become someone else, and as Jasmine puts it “we murder who we were so we can rebirth ourselves in the images of dreams” (Jasmine, P 29). Du becomes the all American boy not because he desires to, but because he must if he is to thrive.
Is Jasmine buying into the American Dream? Or is she just really good at pretending? I believe she does what is necessary to survive. Attending PTA meetings, wearing American clothing, becoming less exotic by letting herself be called Jane. But in the end it’s all a farce. I believe Jasmine is going through the motions if only for self-preservation. She knows what she doesn’t want to became, a lifeless dead dog that’s been completely broken and quickly sinks away from existence. “Every time I lift a glass of water to my lips, fleetingly I smell it (the stench of the dead dog). I know what I don’t want to become” (Jasmine Page 5). This definitely isn’t the American dream, it’s reinventing ones self for the sake of pushing forward and making through to the next day. She’ll continue to float back in forth from persona to persona until she’s convinced that it’s safe once again to be herself.
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Change is inevitable in this country. People who move here sometimes feel that they have to change to become part of this society. Others feel that the change is a way to self-discovery. Either way, change is a way of life in America and can be valued for the potential it brings out in people. Jasmine’s persona change is welcomed here if that what she wants and makes her happy.