Namesake

Names are given to us by our parents for us to grow into. Some people do not like their names. Some love and embrace their names. While others do not care either way, a name is just a name; it does not matter what your name is just how you make yourself known. I believe that people make their name. You are defined by your own actions.

In Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine, the main character, Jasmine, changes her names and persona many times throughout the novel. She is born “Jyoti”, in India, where she was considered a typical girl and expected to follow her families traditions. Once married to her husband, Prakash, the name he gave her was Jasmine. As Jasmine she was a different person than Jyoti. Jasmine wanted to work, and tried to “distance myself from everything Indian, everything Jyoti-like” (Mukherjee 145). She followed the ambition of her husband. She wanted to become more American-like. “But Jyoti was now a sati-goddess; she had burned herself in a trash-can…Jasmine lived for the future” (Mukherjee 176). After her husband was murdered, she went with his plans on going to America. She then arrived in Florida some time later.

Once in the states she found herself obligated to go back to a hotel with the captain of the boat that brought her to Florida. She was incidentally raped. Jasmine turned into the Hindu goddess of death and destruction, Kali. Throughout the novel, this is the only time Jasmine gives herself an alternate name. All of the other names were given to her by someone else. Once she had turned into Kali, she then killed her rapist.

Later on in the novel, Jasmine moves up to New York where she meets a family that takes her in. Taylor, the man of the household, gives Jasmine the name “Jase”. Jase acts differently than Jasmine and Jyoti. Jase embraces the American culture and way of life. “Jase went to movies and lived for today” (Mukherjee 176). She wants to succeed in the American Dream. “I became an American in an apartment on Claremont Avenue across the street from a Barnard College dormitory” (Mukherjee 165). Until now she does not consider herself American. Taylor and his family make her realize how great it is to be able to live in America. “I wanted to become the person they thought they saw: humorous, intelligent, refined, affectionate” (Mukherjee 171).

When Jasmine moves out west to Iowa, she starts a family with Bud and their adopted son, Du. Jasmine again has a different personality whom she is called “Jane”. She plays more of the housewife and caring mother. Although Bud and Jasmine are not married, she acts like a wife to Bud. She takes care of him after he is paralyzed. At the end of the novel, she realizes that she is not happy with Bud and hopes and wants Taylor to come and sweep her off her feet and take her West to California. Taylor does do this and Jasmine becomes Jase once again. She embraces the American idea of looking out for oneself; to do whatever makes her happy. She also embraces moving West, which to some people is an American Dream.

Her names play a big part throughout her life. In each case she plays a different person in order to meet the other person or people’s needs. Jasmine seems to be running away from her past and embodies a new personality to go along with the new name. She wants to reinvent herself in order to discard her past. With each name she puts on a new mask, and the one she likes at the end is Jase. In the end I believe she is running towards her new future and wants to fully become ‘Jase’ because Taylor has given her what she needs. “I changed because I wanted to” (Mukherjee 185).

Some times it is good for a person to change who he or she is as a person. Wipe the slate clean and start all over again. Everyone does change who they are throughout their lives. People will talk differently and act differently around certain individuals. There is a time and place for everything. But as often as we do change, we must not forget that we do carry our past experiences with us along for the ride. Our past events mold us to who we are today and we can never get away from that.