A Critical Analysis of Bharati Mukherjees Short Novel Jasmine - Essay Example

Assignment Critical Analysis: Jasmine Introduction In this paper, a critical analysis of Bharati Mukherjee’s short novel Jasmine is conducted with reference to the issues like feminine sexuality, religious conflict and intolerance, etc. The main focus of the paper is on finding out the main point the author wants to make. Not only that, the conflicts within the text will also be identified and analyzed with reference to the complexities of the plot. Thesis Peoples and policies across both the developed and developing/underdeveloped countries think that women are a subspecies within the humans and they are not entitled to proper dignity and equal rights. Discussion Mukherjee’s novella Jasmine is based on a familiar topic, but the author has given it a very complicated treatment. Hence, although discussion on the plot of the literary work is not really necessary in the course of an analysis, we must change the view for this particular work; without summarizing the plot it would be impossible to proceed. In short, the plot is based on a young woman named Jasmine’s immigration from India (a third world country of the 1980s) to the United States (one of the two contemporary superpowers rivaling for global dominance). She takes this decision after her husband is murdered in a religious attack, and attempts to start a new life in America. In doing this she faces several cultural conflicts but yields to the needs of survival. She shifts from one job to another, faces sexual assault, tries to reconstruct her identity by changing her name to Jane Ripplemeyer. Eventually, she adopts a male child Du who is a Vietnamese refugee and strives to become a mother and handle new responsibilities looking at the future. In the view of the nature of the plot, first of all, we must focus on the structure of the novella. If we examine the grammar and vocabulary, they appear to be straight forward. Mukherjee has simply picked up colloquial English and frequently used slang words1. This sort of language is quite unexpected in a short novel when it is dedicated to explain so many complex issues. And even the multiplicity of these issues is astounding keeping in mind that the perspective is somewhat unitary … Mukherjee implements a strictly feminine viewpoint in writing the different subplots. Multiplicity of complex issues applies to the fact that the very construction of the backdrop involves a number of issues. Jasmine’s husband dies in a religious attack. So the issue of religious intolerance is brought at the hyper-point in the first go. Toward the end of the story, the reader learns about Du, who is a Vietnamese refugee. And his near and dear ones might have died by political attacks. So why murders take place and a murder be explained as a crime only, describing it simply as an incident of homicide from the legal point of view? If so, what is genocide and how does it affect the survivors in the broader context of the international community, leaving aside local tensions and ethnic struggles? Mukherjee does not appear to be interested to find an answer to these issues. Instead, she draws the reader to the world of literary realism where Jasmine feels, “The men in our village weren’t saints. We had our incidents. Rape, ruin, shame.” (Mukherjee, 55) So the reader is delivered the message that survival of a woman is a strategic issue rather than an emotional one. So, Jasmine starts uprooting herself culturally and becomes Jane. But the path is not so easy in achieving this. She faces the lustful eyes of men in general. In the course of her struggle to survive, she is even raped by an Iowa banker. The most complicated approach of the story starts to emerge discernable from this point. The feminist approach and style unfurls when Mukherjee (76) directly writes: “The Prime Minister was destroying ancient values with her vasectomy program and giving out free uterine loops.”2 These opening hints about looking toward politics from the viewpoint of recognizing women’s basic rights like family planning and choice to sex is an apparently insignificant political discourse, or rather a part of the broader cross cultural context. However, it is more about female sexuality. Mukherjee shows that Jasmine selects a life where risk of sexual assault is still very high, but he physical or sexual inviolability is less important than her professional ascent in life and right better living standards. Writing about India under the rule of the female Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her attempts to secure a better position for the country’s women elucidates Jasmine’s attitude of denouncing the stereotypes about both female chastity and sexuality. So does Mukherjee criticize the Indian government? Or does she attempt to attack the male dominated culture of the country? No, she exposes the discrepancies of America’s so called free society as well. Hence, her approach has global implications along with mention of local and regional issues. In this context, as the novella progresses, Mukherjee (224) writes that “in Du’s America, parents are unmarried, fathers are invalids, shot on the back on the eve of Christmas Eve.” So the principle conflict submerged within the text can be identified as a continuous intellectual skirmish between feminist and humanist agendas. The reader is compelled to enter the character of Jasmine (or Jane) from time to time. Jasmine could be a victim of religious intolerance. She could also be a victim of orthodoxy. However, interpretations of this orthodoxy are confusing in the context of India because here both religious issues and gender iniquities are significant. And when Jasmine adapts to the American way of life, the orthodoxy is constrained inside man’s sexual fantasies that have existed for thousands of years all over the world. Unfortunately, it appears to have implications for both power politics and gender politics in the view of the fact that activities like rape are not merely a matter of sex; they are a matter of domination too. But what kind of agenda is probably behind the writer’s intentions? Is that agenda politically motivated at all? And this is perhaps the main point Mukherjee wants to make: Discrimination against women exist in all cultures including those of both the underdeveloped/developing and developed countries. Conclusion The best part of the novella is that it is based on a series of realistic description and interpretation of events. However, the main demerit appears to be a chronic inconsistency in the writer’s viewpoint. Mukherjee appears to have neglected the fact that not only women but also men are suffering due to the intercultural conflicts and immigration issues around us. Finally, economic and social iniquities are not a kind of “shame” (Mukherjee, 55) for the victimized woman alone. This is a calamity upon human beings. Work Cited Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. New York: Grove Press, 1989. Print. Read More