Identity Crisis through Cultures and Spaces in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine
ناسنامەی کولتووری، دایاسپۆرا و قەیرانی ناسنامە لە ڕۆمانی یاسمین نوسینی بەهاراتی
Prepared by the researcher : Pshtiwan Hameed Majeed – Graduate Student (Master’s Degree in English Literature) University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran
Democratic Arabic Center
International Journal of Kurdish Studies : Fourth Issue – January 2024
A Periodical International Journal published by the “Democratic Arab Center” Germany – Berlin
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Abstract
The article aspired to investigate cultural identity, diaspora, and identity crisis in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine. This study concentrated on the female protagonist who could represent Indian immigrant women in American multicultural society. This qualitative research explored the essential facets of females that struggle to reconstruct identity in the context of migration, opportunities and threats, and decision-making. The study applied some key concepts of postcolonial transcultural discourses of Assimilation, Being and Becoming, and Third Space. Female immigrants endeavor to leave their countries to achieve freedom, equality, and a better life and opportunity in a new country. They face unexpected situations of diaspora and culture shock. Women have to be willing to tolerate or sacrifice a part of the old themselves so that they can step into a better life. The writer examines her protagonist through a long process from the first space (Indian culture) to the third space (American culture). She offers three options for their future lives (assimilation, hybridity, rejection). The heroine strives to reconstruct her identity to fit in mainstream American society. Jasmine‘s harmonious and tolerant behavior is extraordinary, instead of rejecting the struggles of the foreign land, whenever necessary, she adapts to different harsh situations. The protagonist does not surrender until achieves her goals, successfully. Assimilation and adjustment to the third space culture help Jasmine to reconstruct her new identity through a transformational process of being and becoming and the effects of her exceptional thinking of past, present, and future. Jasmine transforms from a tolerant village girl limited to fate and practice to a modern woman who forms her identity and life through migration and wants to forget her past and embrace a new one to fulfil her American citizenship. Stuart Hall and Homi Bhabha’s interdisciplinary theoretical research on culture, identity, and their academic work boosted patterns and raised cultural identity. The two cultures of the original and the exotic land have an emotional impact on each character which led us to bring their views of the postcolonial understanding of multicultural settings. Their notions likewise demonstrate the importance of several key concepts and their influence personally and socially. Ultimately, they elucidate that without understanding the value of both cultures and accepting which, they cannot categorize their personalities.
پوختە
ئەم پەیپەرە هەوڵدەدات کە لێکۆڵینەوە لە ناسنامەی کولتووری، دایاسپۆرا و قەیرانی ناسنامە بکات لە ڕۆمانی یاسمین لە نووسینی بەهاراتی موخرجی. ئەم توێژینەوەیە لەسەر ئەو پاڵەوانە ژنە چڕ بوەتەوە کە دەتوانێت نوێنەرایەتی بەشێک لە ژنانی کۆچبەری هیندی بکات لە کۆمەڵگەی فرە کولتوری ئەمریکادا. ئەم لێکۆڵینەوە چۆنایەتییە لەو لایەنە جەوهەریانە دە کۆڵێتەوە کە تایبەتن بە ئافرەتان، کە لە چوارچێوەی کۆچکردن، دەرفەت و هەڕەشەکان و بڕیارداندا خەبات دەکەن بۆ بنیاتنانەوەی ناسنامە. توێژینەوەکە هەندێک چەمکی سەرەکی سەبارەت بە بۆچونە ئەکادیمیەکان لەسەر کولتورو فرەکلتوری کۆلۆنیالیزمی لەخۆگرتوە ،چەمکەکەکانی هاوچەشنەبوون، بوون و هەبوون و فەزای سێیەمی بەکارهێناوە. بەشێک لە ژنەکان هەوڵدەدەن وڵاتەکانیان بەجێبهێڵن بۆ بەدەستهێنانی ئازادی و یەکسانی و ژیان و دەرفەتێکی باشتر لە وڵاتێکی نوێدا. ڕووبەڕووی بارودۆخی چاوەڕواننەکراوی ڕەوەند و شۆکی کولتووری دەبنەوە. ژنان دەبێت ئامادەبن وە بەرگە بگرن و بەشێک لە ڕابردووی تاڵیان بکەنە داینەمۆ بۆ ئەوەی بتوانن هەنگاو بنێن بۆ ژیانێکی باشتر. نووسەر لە ڕێگەی پرۆسەیەکی درێژخایەنەوە لە فەزای یەکەمەوە (کلتووری هیندستان) تا فەزای سێیەم (کلتووری ئەمریکی) پاڵەوانەکەی تاقیدەکاتەوە. نوسەر سێ بژاردە بۆ ژیانی داهاتووی پاڵەوانەکە دەخاتەڕوو (هاوچەشنەبوون، دووڕەگبوون، ڕەتکردنەوە). پاڵەوانەکە هەوڵدەدات ناسنامەکەی بنیات بنێتەوە بۆ ئەوەی لە کۆمەڵگەی ئەمریکادا جێی ببێتەوە. ڕەفتاری هاوسەنگ و لێبوردەیی یاسەمین نائاساییە، لەبری ئەوەی کلتوور و خاکی بێگانە ڕەت بکاتەوە، هەرکاتێک پێویست بکات، خۆی لەگەڵ دۆخە سەختە جیاوازەکاندا دەگونجێنێت. پاڵەوان تا گەیشتن بە ئامانجەکانی بە سەرکەوتوویی، تەسلیم نابێت. هاوچەشنەبوون و خۆگونجاندن لەگەڵ کولتورو فەزای سێیەم یارمەتی یاسمین دەدات بۆ بنیاتنانەوەی ناسنامە نوێیەکەی لە ڕێگەی پرۆسەیەکی گۆڕانکاری لە بوون و هەبوون و کاریگەرییەکانی لەسەر بیرکردنەوەی ناوازەی خۆی لە ڕابردوو و ئێستا و داهاتوو. یاسەمین لە کچێکی گوندنشینی لێبوردە کە سنووردارە بە چارەنووس و پراکتیکەوە دەگۆڕێت بۆ ژنێکی مۆدێرن کە لە ڕێگەی کۆچەوە ناسنامە و ژیانی خۆی پێکدەهێنێت و دەیەوێت ڕابردوە تاڵەکانی خۆی لەبیر بکات و ڕابردوویەکی نوێ بنەخشێنێت بۆ ئەوەی ڕەگەزنامەی ئەمریکی بەدیبهێنێت و بەسەربەرزی و ئازادی بژێت. توێژینەوە تیۆریەکان و بیروبۆچونەکانی ستوارت هۆڵ و هۆمی بەهبەها لەسەر کولتوورو ناسنامە ، کارە ئەکادیمییەکانیانیان دەوڵەمەندتر کرد . دوو کولتوری و خاکی ڕەسەن و خاکی غەریبی کاریگەری سۆزدارییان لەسەر هەر کەسێک هەیە کە وای لێدەکات بۆچوونەکانی بۆ تێگەیشتنی دوای کۆلۆنیالیزم لە ژینگە فرە کولتوورییەکان بگۆڕێ. بە هەمان شێوە تێڕوانینی گرنگی چەند چەمکێکی سەرەکی و کاریگەرییەکانی لە ڕووی کەسی و کۆمەڵایەتییەوە نیشان دەدەن. لە کۆتاییدا ئەوە ڕوون دەکەنەوە کە مرۆڤەکان بەبێ تێگەیشتن لە بەهای هەردوو کولتوورەکە و قبوڵکردنی هەردوکیان، ناتوانن کەسایەتییەکانیان پۆلێن بکەن و بچەسپێنن.
- Introduction
This study examines Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine regarding diasporic subjectivity and cultural identity crises. It attempts to show the identity of assimilation and assertion of the female protagonist. It clarifies how identity assimilation reconstructs itself through immigration, time and space, and the process of being and becoming via past, present and future. This study analyzes the suppression of the woman protagonist in a male-dominated society. In contrast, the male characters have received, more or less, enough attention from the female character. It seems to be marginalized by the critics who have discussed the female character more than the story’s male characters and analyzed the facets of oppression like sexuality, motherhood, and household.
One can also see Jasmine’s endeavour to the sense of self and the new identity she strives to fulfil, i.e. to ignore the past and leave everything behind that reminds them of Jyoti and formulate a new American future. Jasmine experiences the pull of opposing strength and intensity as she travels from India to America. This tension establishes a continuous pattern of hope and depression, depression and hope. There is a confrontation between two worlds, and the essence of her effort is to survive and fulfil her dream. That tension is vital for self-transformation regarding the new migrant aesthetics (Singh, 2008, p. 78).
Jasmine’s story in America implies more problems to face. In the third space, she starts to feel her identity crisis more powerfully and in different ways. Identity is an essence, and signs of taste, beliefs, attitudes and lifestyles can signify that essence. She removes the native integral elements of her Identity; Jasmine is a stranger in the new country since identities are entirely social constructions that cannot exist outside cultural representations (Barker, 2003, p. 220).
Third-space
The third space, or the space of no one, is where the processes of creolization, transformations, assimilations, syncretisms and banishments occur. It sits for the endless manners in which the situation enforces Indian people to depart; it is the signifier of immigration itself- of travelling, voyaging and returning as destiny. In this perception, the “new world presence”, the terra incognito, forms the very beginning of the diaspora of the Indian presence of diversity, hybridity, and difference (Hall, 1996, pp. 234-235). Through the third space, cultural significances and indications are surveyed, amended and reread with new attitudes and possibilities. Thus, the third space exemplifies cultural negotiation, modification, and a general language climate.
Cultural identity always arises in the third space’s contradiction and uncertainty, making a case for a hierarchical culture unjustified. That is because an ambivalent third space of cultural identity may help Jasmine withstand the exoticism of cultural diversity to empower adaptation where cultural differences operate. The productive capacities of third space are crucial for colonial or postcolonial origin. A keenness to disembark into that strange area may unlock the way to conceptualizing an international culture founded not on the exoticism of multiculturalism or cultural diversity but on the manifestation and representation of culture’s adaption. (Bhabha, 1994, p. 38).
Jasmine and The Third Space
The first transformation in the protagonist’s identity occurs when at fifteen, she marries Prakash, who is a twenty-four-year-old student, and he calls her Jasmine. Jasmine transforms from a tolerant village girl limited to fate and tradition to a modern woman who forms her identity and life through migration; the one who wants to forget her past indeed and embraces and assimilates a new one to fulfil her American citizenship. Jasmin does not stop reinventing her unique form of empowered identity. For Jasmine, the third space or American space holds a system of impression, integrity, strategies, and communal manifestation. As Psaltis points out, culture is a process of double meaning in a system of notions, values, and practices. Therefore, Jasmine represents a female character who can benefit from the process of immigration and make sense of her life through American culture. “I am not choosing between men. I am caught between the promise of America and old-world dutifulness” (Mukherjee, 1988, p. 132).
Jasmine no longer lets herself be a victim; her choice for murder rather than suicide encourages her to complete her mission and helps her to adjust and assimilate her identity. Jasmine’s reaction is for “reborn, debts and sins all paid for” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 199). Consequently, she starts her “journey, travelling light”. not worried by the enforced limitations and conventions and ready “to adjust and to participate” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 175).
Mukherjee’s narrator and the heroine, Jasmine, experiences the “third space” in the middle of the foreign sociocultural pattern; she struggles to create her dream life. The third space emanates from the sociocultural tradition; a rich zone emerges from the transformation and differentiation of the alternative discourses, contending for transmissions and positionings that promote affiliation and proficiency (Gregory & Williams, 2002, p. 171). Mukherjee depicts her portrayals by the colours of culture and society that produce new characters. Vygotsky’s ideas in 1962, hence have an important impact in indicating the sociocultural impact in enhancing self-skills. His ideas for understanding stimulate the energetic interdependence between self and social functions in forming knowledge (Steiner & Mahn, 1996, p. 192).
While women are abused and ignored by men whose impulsive decisions and underestimated actions ruin family and society, ironically, the patriarchal system aims to metamorphose women’s identities, destroy their egos, and affect their confidence and independence. Therefore, women are smart enough to emphasize education as one extremely important sub-strategy to indoctrinate and educate the next generation’s male members against patriarchy and patriarchal conduct. Further, it communicates the number of concerns related to trauma survivors and the pursuit of identity of the female behaviors who strive to come out of the attitude of assimilation and assertion.
Jasmine builds the proposal of the amalgamation, combination and absorption of the East in the West with the storytelling of a young Hindu woman who leaves India for the U.S. following her husband’s assassination, merely to be raped and, in the extended run, return to the understanding of a caregiver through a succession of careers. Jasmine voluntarily undergoes a self-transformation from Jyoti to Jane to Jase to Jasmine. At every personality conversion, she stands unyielding in resistance to her providence and destiny. It is not the uncertainties of the new continent that challenge her but the uncertainties of her life in an unknown circumstance. Her journey to the third space is a sort of “regeneration through violence” and her ultimate realization in America “that it won’t disintegrate’.
At the same time, she feels her marginalization in the harsh words of an officer on TV who describes the illegal refugees: “The border’s like Swiss cheese and all the mice are squirming through the holes” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 23). In response to all this, she tries to get Americanized as quickly as possible.
Being and Becoming of Jasmine
Mukherjee portrays characters corresponding to the critical concepts of displacement discourses in constructing identities that undergo constant transformations and transcending time and space. Hall’s discourse can examine her protagonist characters through the “Third Space” and essential processes of the concept of “being and becoming” (Hall, 1994, pp. 227-236).
Being and becoming of identity is a crucial notion in Mukherjee’s Jasmine; Jasmine tends to converge, and so does Bharati Mukherjee, albeit quite deliberately, to the standard of natives. Bharati Mukherjee, in her confession, bemoans the state of “overseas citizenship while expecting the permanent protection and economic benefits that come with living and working in America”. The constant reminder of Language, physical differences and loss of the native land no longer problematizes the exceptionally intricate endeavour of assimilation. Instead, Jasmine’s peculiarity of her personality adds to the mystic charm. “Nothing was rooted anymore. Everything was in motion” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 152).
Instead of a fixed identity, traveling characterizes the subjectivity of Jasmine. The world, for her, becomes a makeshift shelter, where she holds numerous integrities inside and outside, entrance and exit, for better future chances. Despite their ordeal in their itineraries, Mukherjee’s cross-bred characters find happiness in their new home. Crucially, however, they do not ignore where they come from. One can realize Jasmine’s character as a representative of the third-world woman, who is heroin and the novel’s narrator. She involves translating a transcultural and postcolonial Indian female subject position. She exhibits the potential to change to achieve her goals and what it means to be American. And therefore, the identity she negotiates is a revolutionary attitude toward becoming an American.
Jasmine strives to change her fate; she shuttles between binary oppositions. She endeavours to open new ways for new opportunities. However, the barriers challenge her. Nevertheless, Jasmine is enthusiastic and cannot stop ever moving, while the obstacles weaken her move. The first transition in Jasmine’s identity takes place when she is a teenager; she marries Prakash, a twenty-four-year-old student who renames Jyoti to Jasmine. Prakash helps and guides Jasmine in having a new life with a unique identity:
After they spend two years, an extremist zealot kills her husband; now, Jasmine, a young widow, departs east to west, India to the United States. Her voyage aims to take her husband’s luggage to Florida, symbolically fulfilling her husband’s vision to migrate. After a long and exhausting illegal journey, the half-face, the ship’s captain, rapes Jasmine; then, she takes revenge by killing him. After imposing the act of vengeance, Jasmine shuts the door of the cheap hotel behind her, sets a fire burns her husband’s luggage with her clothes tinted with the dead man’s blood. Then Jasmine burns her clothes in the trash bin; Jasmine symbolically ruins the old traditions and her traditional identity (Singh, 2008, p. 71). After departing the deserted hotel, she is alone, with no money, hungry and feeling sick. Then, Jasmine goes to the north; she becomes the model of the expatriate whose feelings of misery and anguish in the following lines, she expresses her sense of failure and collapse on the one hand and shows her hope if they allow them to land or pass.
Fear of recognizing her husband’s assassin changes the situation and her host family’s safety, obliging Jasmine/Jase to escape to Baden. There she becomes Bud Ripplemeyer’s lover, and at this stage, Jasmin becomes pregnant with Bud, and he calls her Jane; now, she is stronger and more conscious. She has a significant modification of her life and others “I feel so potent, a goddess. . . . Asia had transformed him, made him reckless and emotional”, Jasmin’s process of being and becoming is continuing. The necessity of reconstructing identity several times under the influence of situational events and past and present is her norm.
Jasmine builds a new realm consisting of new ideas and values; constantly, she forgets the past and establishes a unique cultural disposition. This metamorphosis is distinguished not only in the modifications in her belief but also more significantly in her connection with men. The surrounding environments impact the construction of her identities, thereby arising in a diversity of consciousness. Hence, Jasmine’s movement toward achieving her authentic identity and her quest to the united states of America is the revolution of finding self-destiny. She could successfully fulfil her goals, forgetting her chaotic past and reestablishing a new world.
Jasmine is so disturbed by his belittlement that she kills Half Face to take revenge for the rape and humiliation she went through. She feels everything dear to her is occupied by the dirty hands of Half Face. Accordingly, she burns them all in a metal garbage bin imitating a sati ritual before leaving the motel. Jasmine’s first night in America is a fundamental transformation; she experiences death and rebirth. After being raped, she realizes as if she is dead until she decides to take quick vengeance on the man who insulted and raped her. Although Jasmine feels deceased, she decides to kill the attacker instead committed suicide, which ceases her as if she is restoring her body. She knows she is a victim (Ruppel, 1995, p. 186). Slicing her tongue first, she murders the man. This bloody ritual is attended by a cleansing ceremony of her body in the first American shower Jasmine experiences in her life, and Jasmine flees the place after her funeral fire in entire American clothes.
Jasmine leaves the mythical and traditional Indian world twice to become a real American. First, when she left India, “my genuine foreignness frightens him, and I do not hold that against him. It frightens me, too” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 26). And the second, as a neighbourhood of Professorji. Jasmine adapts to the American way of life in the different houses she lives in and works as a nanny. She feels the need to become American so profoundly that she believes she has to murder herself first to rebirth in the images of fiction (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 25). She observes the life of Professorji and comes to the following conclusion: “I got the point. He needed to work here, but he didn’t have to like it. He had sealed his heart when he’d left home. His real life was in an unlivable land across oceans. He was a ghost, hanging on.” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 136)?
Forgetting the past is unavoidable for being prepared to create a future. Jasmine must change to survive and continue her journey (Ruppel, 1995, p. 183). Jasmine has a willing and reasonable strategy. She does not withstand adaptation but embraces the changes to adapt to new circumstances. She dwells through several lives in her short life span, similar to the Hindu belief of the death and rebirth cycle and transformations, finally reaching a united identity. Many people, especially men, call her different names in America again. Jasmine becomes Jane, Jase or Jazzy, each time shifting a step closer to a desired unification of identity.
Jasmine’s quest is feasible to be attended to best by following binaries like the confrontation between the eastern and western world and cultures, male and female relationships, the consequences of the past and the desire to adjust to the present for a better fortune. Despite the pessimistic points in her story, as underscored at the beginning, Jasmine’s novel has an optimistic attitude because she admits that she wishes to change herself. She confesses that she changed because she needed to do so, realizing that it would be cowardliness contrary.
Jasmine undergoes her following modification from a trustworthy traditional Indian wife, Jasmine, to Jase when she joins the educated Taylor and then moves on to become Bud” s Jane. Then Jasmine leaves for California with Duff and Taylor; her identity goes on to adapt. The author depicts this transformation and transition as a positive and joyful journey. Jasmine creates a new world of new ideas and values, constantly unmasking her past to establish a new cultural identity by incorporating unique desires, skills, and habits. This transition is defined not only in the changes in her attitude but more significantly in her relationship with men. Jasmine is satisfied with the modification and adaptation that occur in herself; she believes it is genetic. Meanwhile, after three years of the immigrant experience, Jasmine Identifies the practical and effective transformation in Du, her adopted son; the heroine remarks.
Jasmine and Assimilation
To be an American, Jasmine must challenge the harshest situations and learn even the most complicated lessons; she needs adaptation and contribution, although, in America, everything changes fast, and nothing is perfect, and nothing is horrible and not forever. Jasmine weaves the story of an illiterate Punjabi girl who arrives in the United States to self-immolate in the name of her dead husband. The half-faced raped Jasmine the day she lands in the United States and finds herself ostracized in an all-white neighborhood. However, through her attempted meetings with good-intentioned people in America, Jasmine transforms from an ignorant, helpless immigrant to a confident working woman, an unwed mother, a reckless lover, and in the end, “greedy with wants and reckless from hope” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 214). She withholds the substance comforts of her family life and succumbs to the mysterious calling of adventure by rolling with her former lover.”I have had a husband for each of the women I have been. Prakash for Jasmine, Taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane. Half-Face for Kali” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 175).
The symbolic quest of Jasmine’s protagonist starts as Jyoti in India, where she stands against the patriarchal system’s role. Like most Indian women, to be born into such kind of society is unfortunate, and Jasmine’s life is under the custody of her brothers and father. Moreover, due to Indian tradition, a girl should marry at an early age with a dowry which is an obligation and responsibility for the family. Additionally, Indian society sees girls as belongings of their future husbands. That is why families are reluctant to educate them or give them extra capabilities. In short, they are named as condemnations organized toward women “who needed to be punished for sins committed in other incarnations” (Mukherjee, 199, p. 34) according to their religious beliefs.
Jyoti lives as a courageous personality in the patriarchal community that monopolizes India. She does not like to fulfil her society’s predetermined gender roles and the cultural beliefs and traditions that govern the social constructions of men, women and their social relations (Barker, 2003, p. 240). Having attention and pressure more than the ordinary girls, Jasmine wants to continue her education to become a doctor finally and to have her own choices in life, unlike the village girls who are “like cattle” that attend “whichever way you lead them” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 39). Instead, Jyoti prefers “hearing the men talk” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 56) since they usually talk about a world in which she is a foreigner. Thus, the first confrontation Jyoti experiences is between the dominant patriarchal system and the modern life she desires. As a result, Jasmine relinquishes her feeling of belonging to the life and rituals of rural India and dreams of a life which is impossible even to dream for many Indian girls.
Prakash, Jasmine’s Indian spouse, gives her what she looks for. Prakash is a radical man with radical intentions, even for Jyoti. He thinks there’s no area in modern India for the feudal system (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 69); he rejects the traditional way of life and asks his wife to call him by his first name in contrast to Indian customs. However, the tremendous effect on Jyoti is Professor Higgins; she likes his role in her life; like the professor seeking to create a lady out of the flower girl, Prakash plans to swivel Jyoti into the idol, modern woman of India:
Although Jyoti wants to become Jasmine, she is still split into two, just as her life is parted into two halves by her marriage with Prakash. So despite her eagerness for a more modern life, even she hesitates to go beyond patriarchal rules at first. Prakash is different to the other men of the traditional society; he does not recognize marriage as the cultural sanctioning of patriarchal constraint and implemented subordination. Instead, Prakash renames Jyoti as Jasmine, a figurative cut with her feudal. Ultimately, this cut stimulates Jyoti/Jasmine into a deep conflict. As a conventional female, she wants to get pregnant immediately to demonstrate her worth and to assess her disposition.
Instead of the expectations of traditional Indian society, Prakash wants to see Jasmine as an individual interested in educating herself for the better. But unfortunately, Jasmine has left alone with his brutal and unexpected death, after which she has to decide to either drive back to her old life or take hazards for a new one. Finally, Jasmine completes her uprising against Indian patriarchy with her decision to go and live in America as Prakash always wanted. She indicates she is “a widow in the war of feudalisms” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 88).
The novelist differentiates between Jasmine and Jyoti in India and the third space identity engaged by the heroine in America. Thus, the book combines two stories that occur in two different countries and cultures. Following such a scheme, it is possible to say that the India part of the book is about Jyoti’s survival under the hegemony of traditional patriarchy. And her rebirth with the help of Prakash gives her a new name and a new life, even though Jyoti’s rebirth as Jasmine is possible only with the help of a man.
In liberal America, identity could be a choice that forms the core of Mukherjee’s Americanization. In Mukherjee’s worldview, identities remain frozen in countries like India, which is efficient and adaptable in the United States. She continuously outlines America as the new world of hope and improvement in contrast to India of stasis and coercion. The binary is problematic not only for its arbitrariness but also for historicizing South Asian societies.
In her spiritual quest, Jasmine mainly feels close to her adopted son Du, a Vietnamese refugee in the United States. Du is a boy who endured a lot and withstood the most challenging situations. He does not share his experiences too much. Yet, Jasmine and Du share a bond which depends on the mutual understanding of the natural face of their dreamland where “Du knows, mothers are younger than sisters, mothers are illegal aliens, murderers, rape victims; parents are unmarried, fathers have a disability” (Mukherjee, 1991, p. 200).
Jasmine claims not to choose between men but between the promise of America and old-world-dutifulness (Mukherjee, 1991, pp. 213-214). However, the juxtaposition of dutifulness and the promise of America directly places the west on the side of excitement and modification and breaks the belief of India’s validity to be an older and more valid vow. In the older culture, people price responsibility and freedom; however, there are no vows carried to the self, while America allows individual intentions over domestic and communal burdens (Aneja, 1993, p. 78).
Conclusion
Assimilation and adjustment to the third space culture help Jasmine to reconstruct her new identity through a transformational process of being and becoming and the effects of her exceptional thinking of past, present and future. Meanwhile, the woman protagonist is physically, psychologically, and economically suppressed and controlled in the male-dominated society and the Indian old traditions such as sexuality, motherhood, and household. Jasmine transforms from a tolerant village girl limited to fate and practice to a modern woman who forms her identity and life through migration and wants to forget her past and embrace and assimilate a new one to fulfil her American citizenship. Jasmin does not stop reinventing her unique form of empowered identity. For Jasmine, the third space or American space holds a system of impression, integrity, strategies, and communal manifestation. Likewise, the heroine’s belief in self-intent and self-vision has an essential impact on personal and cultural identity. Jasmine’s behavior and understanding are different from other immigrants in various ways. Comprehending the modification elements in the cultural identities of migrants and recipient representatives is essential. Identity unearths among contemporary sociocultural, national, ethnic, and religious conflicts. Migration and globalization have a significant role in emerging identity, although those global forces are credible for emerging identity dilemmas. Hence, Jasmine’s assimilation into the third space sociocultural community determines her change and transformation, mainly at the personal level. Accordingly, Jasmine’s migration process through globalization and transcultural experiences unfolds them into a fixed and confident person. She recognizes herself and unites with the new world. We also become who we are by developing a relationship with the past― not only our history but also our family’s and culture’s past. So the expatriate writers deal mainly with the internal strife in the context of cultural displacements. The immigrants away from the familiar ties oscillate between crisis and reconstruction. Jasmine can observe a significant connection between culture and self; it considerably influences establishing identity. Culture becomes an aspect of characters’ self-understanding and self-recognition after the effect of self-culture’s beliefs, values, norms, and social practices that ground cultural concepts and theories. Mukherjee portrays characters corresponding to the critical images of displacement discourses in constructing identities that undergo constant transformations, transcending time and space (Majeed, 2023, p.10-25). Hall’s discourse can examine Jasmine, the protagonist, through the “Third Space” and essential processes of the concept of “being and becoming”.Jasmine can represent the third-world woman who is heroin and the novel’s narrator. She involves translating a transcultural and postcolonial Indian female subject position.
Jasmine exhibits the potential to change to achieve her goals and what it means to be American. And therefore, the identity she negotiates is a revolutionary attitude toward becoming an American. Jasmine strives to change her fate; Jasmine shuttles between binary oppositions. She endeavors to open new ways for new opportunities. However, the barriers challenge her. Jasmine is enthusiastic and cannot stop ever moving, while the obstacles weaken her move. The construction and self-victimization of the “Third World” subject play an essential role in Jasmine’s transformation. To be an American, Jasmine must struggle with difficult situations and learn even the most challenging lessons; she requires adaptation and assistance, although, in America, everything shifts fast, and nothing is excellent, and nothing is awful and not forever.
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