Choices, as American as Apple Pie

I have choices in life.  I chose which school to go to, it’s my choice as to which girls I want to date, I can choose what clothes I’m going to where  tomorrow.  Choices are as American as apple pie.  Our country prides itself on the fact that we have choices.  It is odd to us that there are places in the world where these choices do not exist.  Places where people are told that this is the person that they will marry, that they must where these clothes, and that because of their gender, religion, or economic standing, that they must go to this school, if they can go to school at all.  And yet the when people who come from the kind of countries where they can’t make these choices to the United States, it is an enormous culture shock.

            In the novel Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee there are two characters that make the transition from places and lives of few choices to the American way of life.  However, the way they adapt is vastly different.

            Du is able to adapt to the American way of choice rather well.  He defines himself by his own actions.  He doesn’t let what obligations others may expect of him tie him into one life.  This can be seen in his going to Los Angelis to live with his sister.  While Jasmine and Bud want and expect him to stay in Iowa he chooses for himself that going to be with his sister is the life that he wants.  He doesn’t let outside influences change the decision that he makes for himself.  This ability to define himself by his own decisions is different than what can be seen of the character Jasmine.

            Jasmine’s future was set out for her when she lived in India.  After the death of her husband she was to live the life of a widow, never to remarry, and to live her life in mourning of her late spouse.  The reason that she came to America in the first place was because of her late husband.  And, in a sense, she was never really able to subvert the classic Indian thinking of how a woman should live her life.  She always defined herself by what the patriarchal man in her life thought of her.  This can be seen in her reflections of the names that she has had.  She has gone from Jasmine to Jase and then to Jane.  All of these names were given to her by the dominant male in her life at the time.  And she let them define her.  As Jasmine she was the wife that Praksah wanted.  As Jase she defined herself as the day mummy of Taylor’s daughter.  And as Jane she was the dedicated Midwestern wife and caregiver that Bud needed.  It is not until the end of the book that she really embraces the ability of choice that she had been letting slip through her fingers before.  She chooses to go with Taylor, to live her life as Jase.  She see’s that this is her decision to make, and she makes it.

            The book Jasmine shows us two different ways that people coming from a foreign way of life adapt to the United States.  They each have different paths, but in the end they both embrace the American way of choice.  They are able to choose the life that they want for themselves, and are able to define themselves by that choice.