Names and Identities

Many times we do not even think of how our name defines us, rather it is just who we are. But what if we didn’t have a name? What if our name was left up to us to decide? Would we make a decision and forever be called by that name, or spend our lives constantly searching for the one that most defines us?

In Bharati Mukherjee’s novel, Jasmine, we find a character who gives up her birth name to identify with many other names. Once giving up the name she was originally born as, Jyoti, she becomes Jasmine after marriage. Jasmine has hopes and dreams of America that she shares with her husband. However after her husband is murdered, she leaves for America only to abandon the ways of Jasmine, an Indian-American, for the ways of Jase, a true American. Jase lives with Taylor and raises his daughter. After Talyor’s separation from his wife, Jase’s feelings for him become even stronger. She is happy again and loving America, but this all fades once she encounters her (Jasmine’s) husband’s murderer. From here Jase gives birth to Jane and moves to Iowa where she begins a life with Bud Ripplemeyer. Her and Bud have a good relationship despite the nearly 30 age difference, and even adopt a child (Du).

Although many characters are shown throughout this novel (Jyoti, Jasmine, Jase, Jane) they are all they same and yet all distinctly different. This is what we take for granted in our everyday lives. We associate ourselves and what’s happening around us with who we are. In this novel, the main character does not. She does not have a common identity with whom she can relate. Rather she is floating between identities even ultimately deciding to become Jase again and leave Iowa with Taylor. She feels that she can “re-position the stars” (pp 240) and become any person that she may want to be, creating a new while destroying the old. Whatever name you may want to call her, they all have one thing in common. They all are searching for the name that which will most identify them and they will most identify with.