The Different Identity Of Jasmine

Maddy Platt

Eng 121

Professor Rosette-Garcia

03-20-2014

Essay #2

Jasmine by Bharti Mukherjee is a novel about what it means to become American. Jasmine was born in a small village in Hasnapur, India. However, she did not stay there long. After her husband was murdered, she moved to the United States, where she transformed into a fully American woman. While she became accustomed to American life and traditions, she never forgot her experiences in India and through every step of her journey in America. Jasmine had five different names throughout her life, and each one represented a different version of herself, as she gradually shifted towards more American values. Although she had different names and different identities, she always held true to her core beliefs and stayed true to herself. Each of the different names represents a distinctly different time in Jasmine’s life, and while outwardly she may seem like an alternative version of herself, she remains the strong willed and adventurous girl despite her situation and her surroundings.

Jasmine’s birth name was Jyoti, meaning “light” in Hindi. The name Jyoti represents Jasmine’s roots and where she came from. This name was given to her by her Grandmother. Jyoti was a village girl who was to be married off early, and whose only purpose in life was to be a wife and to have children. While these were the values of the society she lived in, Jasmine was different. She was adventurous and independent, and unlike her sisters, she was not concerned with finding a much older husband and settling down. The name Jyoti describes who she was intended to be in that specific society, but it did not describe who she was or what her path of life would be. Jasmine thinks of herself as Jyoti when...

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...n which she lived. Although she grew and developed into a modern American woman, she held true to her initial values and her strong personality through her entire journey. These different identities were constructed by her as well as the people she was with, and usually the name was given to her by someone else. This shows how her identity was influenced based on who she was with at the time. Her name becomes more Americanized as she becomes more imbedded into American culture. These names keep her different stages of life separate, however she can go back and forth between them, like when she went back to being Jase after being Jane. Also, she always remembers her past, and even though she transforms from Jyoti to Jasmine to Jazzy to Jase to Jane, each of these identities are all Jasmine all at once. They are all a part of her, and will stay a part of her forever.