Names and Identities of Jasmine and Myself

Growing up I had always been very outgoing, nosey and curious about anything and everything around me. My mother had always known that I would be this way and that my name needed to be something that set me apart. So they named me Carly and many people that grew up in the sixties and seventies liked it because it reminded them of Carly Simon. But when I was little, no one my age knew who Carly Simon was and I was teased often for having such a unique name. Most of the kids in school had names like Jessica or Tiffany and these names that I always longed for seemed to be associated with the pretty” girls in school. It seemed that because my name was different than so was I and it made it difficult to blend in at times.

In Bharati Mukherjee’s novel, Jasmine, an Indian girl from Hasnapur is confronted with a similar situation. The idea of name determines who you are and the way in which you live your life. This belief is held strongly in her culture and affects her life greatly as she grows. At the age of seven she is told by an astrologer that her fate is one of widowhood and exile (page 3). This is the first encounter Jasmine has with the large role various names seem to play in her life but certainly is not the last.

Jasmine as she is later called was not born with this name but instead given the name of Jyoti, meaning light. Throughout the novel Jyoti experiences several changes in her name that all are very significant to the novel. Now with her husband Prakesh Vijh who has given her the name of Jasmine she has reinvented her self. She has transformed from a young awkward girl who at one time was told she would never marry to a beautiful lady. This name allows her to live a new life one that has nothing to do with the old but when her husband dies she shifts identities again.

Jasmine moves to America to leave India and her pain behind. She moves to New York and begins her job as a nanny for a family who later gives her the name Jane. With her American name which seems to set her apart from her Indian past and feeling of loss, moves her into her American future. It seems that by taking on this name she leaves her old life behind in order to blend in to her new surroundings. .

This running away from one identity to another is also a large part of the novel. Jane has once again escaped her name similarly to the way a snake sheds its skin. She may feel as though she is a different person yet her soul is still the same. No matter what name she takes on she cannot run from who she is or what she is to become. As I child I wished for the same thing. To escape the name I was given in order to feel like a different person. I have now realized how lucky I am to be who I am. The person I am and will become is not because of my name but my actions.