T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

ecomes an un-hyphenated American by marrying Bud Ripplemeyer,an Iowa banker. And to make Jasmine's experience suitably~merican, Mukherjee has him shot in the back by a desparatefarmer-" to capture the farm crisis in the mid-west". She alsohas them adopt Du, a Vietnamese boat child " to widen theimmigrant experience".(Purewal 1990,4)The mindless violence Mukherjee encounters is a bittercriticism of America but she persists in her quest of eluslvehappiness, a synbol of womankind and the new ploneers in theWild West. Shattered, Jyoti leaves for America on her own. Overthere her life turns upside down. Each stage brings a newname(from Jasmine to Jase to Jane) and a new lover, almost asif she passes through four incarnetions on her continuous tripWestwards. With Jasmine she emerges more confident, revellingIn her Intimacy wrth the Amerlcan idloss and her extensivefamiliarity with the landscape. She even generously adopts thepopular prejudices regarding the mysterious East and thelnscrutabrlity of the oriental characters. Jasmine appears tohave been written to a set formula. An up-to-date femaleprotaqo~lst, w h ~ though born to the veil, braved everything tosuccesstully szuqgle herself into rhe Unrted States and morethan everything ended up becoming smarter than the mostliberated of American women. Throughout it is compassion thatsustalns Mukher]eels characters while suffering in flight. Her