Jasmine By Bharati Mukherjee Analysis

Migration is one of the significant subjects of Mukherjee’s novel. The process of migration has always been a dislocating and alienating experience for many diasporic writers. It separates the migrant from the home and culture to such an extent that their very being undergoes thorough transformation. This transformation is such that it alienates the migrant from the occident who is firmly rooted in the western culture. One of such migrating character is Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine who undergoes a rapid shaping and reshaping of identity in order to be born again and again. She who has lived in different cultures clearly presents the cultural shock. The migration leads to the crisis of identity with a final reconciliation to the choice. Bharati Mukherjee uses her experiences of the Indian diaspora in order to create a global narrative.

Jasmine (1991) a piece of work by her represents the journey of a woman from Jyoti of Jullundhar to Jane Ripplemeyer of Elsa County, Iowa. The flower from India that is destined to spread fragrance in America; the story of Jyoti, a girl from Punjab, young, beautiful and full of confidence.

Being a caregiver to the Hayes is amongst the best periods of her life. Hayes are a family of three Taylor Hayes, ‘a professorji was an expert in an area of subnuclear particle physics’ (169), his wife Wylie was a book editor for a publisher and their adopted daughter Duff. It is the charming and witty professor who shortens Jasmine’s name to Jase thus providing her another identity to get in tune with. He helps her to understand the complexities of an American family. She accepts the job of a ‘care giver’ in their house and has to look after Duff. Whereas what she actually desires is something different, she says, “I wanted to become the person they saw: humorous, intelligent, refined, affectionate. Not illegal, not murderer, not widowed, raped, destitute, fearful”