Free Blog 4: America

          As Jasmine enters the country in which she expects to perform her culture rituals, she is met by an America that is not the land she has heard of. Americans view themselves, “as the embodiments of liberty, openness, and individualism” yet that is not the America that Jasmine arrives to (Mukherjee 32). When her husband, Prakash, talked of America he talked of opportunity and wealth. The aerogram in which he brought home about America to show Jasmine read, “TRAVEL…THE PERFECT FREEDOM” (Mukherjee 83). But when Jasmine arrives she is faced with discrimination and a culture in which she cannot relate. Unlike India, Jasmine sees Americans as dirty and full of greed. The women of America are not modest like the women in India but rather the American women openly display their sexuality for all to see. Jasmine states that the women of New York have, “no concept of shame” (Mukherjee 171). This contrasts the role for women that she has been taught. Jasmine cannot relate to the way in which these women act. She recognizes that because of the culture she was raised in, she would rather die than reveal the personal side of her (Mukherjee 170). Despite the contrasts of cultures, especially America’s, “flimsy invisible lines of weak gravity”, Jasmine relies on her culture to discover who she is in a land that is foreign.


         The ways in which Jasmine discovers who she is is by the contrasting ideas in America about motherhood, wifely responsibilities, and self-reliance. As she observes the American way of life, she resorts back to her cultural customs and compares the two cultures. For example, motherhood. While Jasmine was growing up, their family was a tight-nit circle. Their mother raised them, their father provided for them, her brothers looked out for her, and they taught each other how to live. Their mother was concerned for their well-being and finding a husband. The American family that Jasmine lives with and observes first hand is in New York with Taylor, Wylie and their daughter Duff. This family is very different from what Jasmine is used to. They hire an outsider to watch after their daughter. Wylie, the mother, works outside of the home. Ultimately, the Wylie leaves her husband, Taylor, which is something that would not happen in Indian culture. As Jasmine tries to sort our this American family, she returns to what she knows. First of all, Jasmine's maternal instincts immediately take charge. She refers back to her Hindu upbringing of familial closeness. She states that she could, "not imagine a small child sleeping alone" (Mukherjee 172). This difference in culture shapes the way in which Jasmine views motherhood. She sees the difference between the cultures and prefers to mother a child the way she was raised. Ultimately, Jasmine decides to stay with Duff in her room, keeping with her cultural traditions. 


Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. New York: Grove, 1989. Print.


Mukherjee, Bharati. "Beyond Multiculturalism: Surviving the Nineties." Journal for Modern Literature 20.1 (1996): 29-34. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 01 May 2012.