It does not matter what your name is, it does matter who you are!

After reading "Jasmine", I really fall in love with this broken story. This woman's life seems to be so long, not because how many years it has passed, but because it includes so many stories, people, and emotions. It's a woman's legend, which encourages me a lot, since it's not a simple happy story, but a tough story. As Jasmine's first name-Joyti, which means light, it's more shinning when you see light through darkness. I think that's also why I love this story so much. After all the experiences, I see Jasmine is still standing there and moving on.

I want to analyze the three important man Jasmine has lived with in the story, because I think each man changes her life a lot, also her name and identity. Jasmine's first husband is Prakash. They got married two weeks after they first met. She had already fallen in love with his voice, overheard during a conversation with her brothers. Prakash is not like the traditional Indian man that he is more open-minded and modern. He gives her a new name Jasmine, which also starts a new life for Jasmine. He asked Jasmine to call his first name, rather than the pronoun used in the traditional address between women and men, which creates a equality between husband and wife. He also planed to move to America, to look for his American dream with Jasmine. I really like this man and I think Jasmine does love him as well. Unfortunately, he was killed before the departure, which changed Jasmine's fate the first time. I feel this man is quite important for Jasmine that he pointed out a different life direction to her--to go to America.

The second, and maybe the most essential man in Jasmine's life is Taylor, who named her Jase. I feel that Taylor's love gave her an experience to feel the freedom. Under the free atmosphere of America, Taylor declared his love to Jasmine. In this relationship, I feel the most important thing is that Jasmine and Taylor are two independent person. As the article says, "Jase was a woman who bought herself spangled heels and silk chartreuse pants. Jasmine lived for the future, for Vijh and Wife,. Jase went to the movies and lived for today..." From this time period, Jasmine's self-identity become more and more obvious, because she can earn money for herself that she is not a girl who need to depend on parent or men. From Taylor, she did not only earn love, but her new life.

I guess Bud is a necessary character in the story, even though I don't like this man. After fate gave Jasmine a second-time destroy, Jasmine had to come back and began her life with Bud. This man is quite traditional, even not like Prakash. I don't think Jasmine actually loves him. What she felt about him is that she need to take this responsibility to be with him. In the end of the story, Jasmine struggled to leave Bud because she thought it's not the right thing. Taylor urged her to pull down the shade in her head and block out any thoughts that prevent her from utilizing her own free well. This time, Jasmine made her choice to leave with Taylor. She at last broke the last obstacle in her life, and began to make choice for her own.

I hold that these three men helped Jasmine to finish her transformation and rebirth. It also make me believe that people can really rebirth again and again. If you want, then you will find the chance to start over. I don't know what will happen to Jasmine in the future, but I'm sure she can get over it, because she is a new Jasmine, who will follow her own will.

PS: There is one interesting point is that Jasmine is a flower's name as well. And when I research on the characters of Jasmine, I find that Jasmine will flourish three times in a year, which is just like Jasmine in the book who can rebirth again and again.

stands for purity, respect and loyalty 

And I also want to introduce a great movie to you, which I think is also a encouraging story like Jasmine. The movie is directed by a Taiwanese Zhang Aijia, which name is "Siao Yu". It tells a story that a girl named Siao Yu who goes to America with her husband without an illegal status. She needs to "fake" marry to an American guy so that she can become the illegal citizen in America. And through this process, she changes her identity and at last starts a new life in America.

Something about Bharati Mukherjee

Biography


Bharati Mukherjee was born on July 27, 1940 to wealthy parents, Sudhir Lal and Bina Mukherjee in Calcutta, India (Alam 1). She learned how to read and write by the age of three (Vignisson). In 1947, she moved to Britain with her family at the age of eight and lived in Europe for about three and a half years. By the age of ten, Mukherjee knew that she wanted to become a writer, and had written numerous short stories.
After getting her B.A from the University of Calcutta in 1959 and her M.A. in English and Ancient Indian Culture from the University of Baroda in 1961, she came to the United States of America (Alam 4). Having been awarded a scholarship from the University of Iowa, earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing in 1963 and her Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature in 1969 (Alam 5). While studying at the University of Iowa, she met and married a Canadian student from Harvard, Clark Blaise, on September 19, 1963. The two writers met and, after a brief courtship, married within two weeks (Alam 7).; Together, the two writers have produced two books along with their other independent works. Mukherjee's career a professor and her marriage to Blaise Clark has given her opportunities to teach all over the United States and Canada. Currently she is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Major Themes


Mukherjee's works focus on the "phenomenon of migration, the status of new immigrants, and the feeling of alienation often experienced by expatriates" as well as on Indian women and their struggle (Alam 7). Her own struggle with identity first as an exile from India, then an Indian expatriate in Canada, and finally as a immigrant in the United States has lead to her current contentment of being an immigrant in a country of immigrants

Works

The Tiger's Daughter, Houghton, 1972.
Wife, Houghton, 1975.
Kautilya's Concept of Diplomacy: A New Interpretation, Minerva, 1976.
(With Blaise) Days and Nights in Calcutta (nonfiction), Doubleday: Garden City, New York, 1977.
An Invisible Woman, McClelland & Stewart, 1981.
Darkness, Penguin, 1985.
(With Blaise) The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy, Viking, 1987.
The Middleman and Other Stories, Grove, 1988.
Jasmine, Grove, 1989.
Political Culture and Leadership in India (nonfiction), South Asia, 1991.
Regionalism in Indian Perspective (nonfiction), South Asia, 1992.
The Holder of the World, Knopf: New York City, 1993.
Leave It to Me, A.A. Knopf: New York City, 1997.

I'm crazy, because I feel the pain

After reading the article "Beccah", I feel this is a story full of mysteries. Maybe it is because it's about the phychic mother who can know things others cannot. And maybe it's becuase I don't know anything about the background of this mother and daughter. Where did they come from? What they had got through? How did Beccah's father dead? What happened to Akiko? I really cannot tell what excatly happened to them, but from the reality today in the article, I can imagine what had happend. It must be a sad and tough story.

I think Akiko is a combination of the three--she is psychic, crazy and traumatized. I don't know what's the order actually, nevertheless my conjecture is that she became traumatized first, then crazy, then psychic. The reason for saying that is that nobody is naturally born crazy, except the genius like artists or scentists. Obviously, Akiko is not that kind of genius that she is a normal woman. So there must be some causes for her craziness, and the very reasonable one is that she got traumatized, which is related to Beccah's father's death. In the beginning of the article, it says, "On the fifth anniversary of my father's death, my mother confessed to his death." A woman confessed that she killed her husband to her daughter. We can see she had already turned to be crazy at that time. There must be some bad things happened between his mother and father. Maybe she never loved this man and gave birth to Beccah reluctantly. Maybe this man ruined her life and own plan. There maybe thousands of possibilities. The only one result is Akiko got traumatized and crazy. I don't think Akiko is really phychic, at least I don't believe in that. In Akiko's perspective, she may believe that she really owns some special power, in this way her husband is killed by her curses day by day. As in the ending paragraph, Akiko told Beccah, "I'm teaching you something very important about life. Listen, Sickness, bad luck, death, these things are not accidents. This kind stuff, people wish on you. Believe me, I know and if you cannot block these wishes, all the death thoughts people and you collect, become arrows in your back." In a world in the reality where you feel that you cannot change anything, people start to build a dream world where they can change things. Akiko is such an example that she builds the phychic world for herself. And the guests' belief in Akiko's power, on one hand is becuase Auntie Reno's persuasive word, on the other hand is becuase they maybe victims like Akiko as well.

I don't know Akiko has any connection to the Korean War or not, but she reminds me of the women during Nanjing massacre, who were raped and tortured by the Japanese soldiers. A lot of them were tortured to death, while some of them got through and gave birth to children. What you will feel if your children's father is someone you hate? I think the experience is miserable and complicated.

Here are some pictures of the women during the Nanjing Massacre.