Jasmine: Passive Aggressive

“I let the dog inch so close I could feel a slimy vapor spray out of its muzzle.  I let it crouch and growl its low, terrible, gullety growl.  I took aim and waited for it to leap on me” (Mukherjee p.57).  This passage describing Jyoti Vinh’s technique while defending herself against a rabid dog in the Bharati Mukherjee novel Jasmine can also be used to describe her approach towards her own life journey.  Jyoti, who through a series of name changes becomes the Jasmine for which the novel is titled, is a young girl at the time of the attack that took place in her Indian village.  Jasmine goes through a sort of metamorphosis throughout the novel, born in India her future was predetermined, as it was for all young women in India, arranged marriages, strict dress code, the women in India had few rights and very little was expected to become of them other than wives of Indian men.  Jasmine seemed rather reluctant to conform to the traditions of her culture and instead decided to move to the United States where she begins to rediscover herself. 

Jasmine shows a passive aggressive method of defense against the crazed dog and seems to mirror that approach by her way of adapting to the new culture around her.  Her choice to move to the states is an aggressive decision, while her acceptance of her American name comes rather passively, without reaction.  Jasmine seems determined to adapt to the culture of the U.S., in other words become Americanized.  This may be because she needed more than the life of an Indian woman, without decision, without choice, maybe she came to the U.S. with hopes of freedom and a life full of choices and alternatives.  I do believe that Jasmine found her Indian culture plain and constricting.  I believe that the lifestyle of an average American woman is enough to satisfy Jasmine’s desire to separate herself from her native culture, which kept her so concealed.  I believe that Jasmine may in fact be satisfied with just going through the motions, I believe that she is determined enough to become an average American woman living an average American life that she is willing to set her own thoughts aside and let the people around her guide her though this process of Americanization.  I feel that Jasmine lives passively, trying to float under the radar in American society she wants to blend in.  I believe that Jasmine feels that most successful approach to adapting is a passive one, one in which she allows her companions to more or less mold her within them, once she has adapted to the ones she is close to she will then blend within the rest of society.