Reinventing the Self in Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Radha Devi Sharma
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Female Protagonist ◽  
Foreign Land ◽  
American Society

Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine is a story of a young Punjabi woman named Jasmine whose life takes her from India to the United States, where she goes through many different destinies with her effort to reinvent her coherent self. Searching for and defining a new identity is a central question for immigrants living in a foreign land. The confusion of identity and cultural conflict pushes the immigrants into an identity crisis. The novel exposes how Jasmine, the female protagonist, as an outsider, strives to shape her identity to fit in the mainstream American society. Fortunately, she encounters confirmations of her shifting identity in different stages of her life. Instead of rejecting these identities and names in various phases, she seeks to create a harmonious relationship with those identities. In this context, this paper tries to explore on how she struggles throughout her life to reinvent the coherent self by her constant effort to assimilate to the alien culture and setting.Crossing the Border: International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Vol.4(1) 2016: 29-38

scholarly journals New Land, New Rubrics: Presenting Diasporic Experience of Asian-American Immigrants in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Selected Short Stories

sjesr ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 278-285
Author(s):  
Hassan Bin Zubair ◽  
Akifa Imtiaz ◽  
Asma Kashif Shahzad
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Asian American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
Her Family ◽  
American Society ◽  
Central Characters ◽  
Asian American Immigrants

This research explored the lives and worldviews of Asian immigrants in the United States presented in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's stories in The Unknown Errors of Our Lives (2001). Central characters in Divakaruni's narratives embody the sufferings of immigrants in the New Land. Precisely it was proposed to study the stories from the perspective of the diaspora. In this collection, the researcher has selected five stories, including "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter," "The Intelligence of Wild Things," "The Blooming Season for Cacti," "The Names of Stars in Bengali," and "The Unknown Errors of Our Lives." Since the characters like Mrs. Dutta, Mira, Radhika, and Kahuku's mother emigrate from India to different zones of America, they combat issues of cultural contradiction, identity crisis, disruption and family strives. Unlike them, Tarun, Mrs. Dutta's son, and her family are assimilated into the American society, whereas the characters such as Mrs. Dutta, Didi, and Mira recurrently remember their original house and early childhood days with friends. It is because they are fragmented and frustrated in America. The study concluded that the characters in her stories are ambitious and want to live a luxurious life but because of the lack of opportunities, they could not fulfill their desires and even some of them decided to return to their homeland to get a better life.

Madness, Entropy, Paradox: The Legacy of Political Violence in Loida Maritza Pérez's Geographies of Home

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-345
Author(s):  
JENNIFER KRAUSE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Novel ◽  
American Society ◽  
Dominican American

This article adds to the conversation surrounding what it means to be Latino/a within the United States by considering Loida Maritza Pérez's Geographies of Home. By focussing on the plight of Marina within the novel, one can begin to look at this Dominican-American as not just a madwoman and victim of diaspora, machismo, and class; instead, she is a character who questions archetypal iterations of Latino/a identity even as she reinforces national and transnational stereotypes. Such a close reading of Pérez's novel allows us to reconfigure ideas of race, displacement, and hyphenation in American society.

Finding God through Yoga

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Neumann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Christian Belief ◽  
Religious Nationalism ◽  
Transnational Modernity

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952), a Hindu missionary to the United States, wrote one of the world’s most highly acclaimed spiritual classics, Autobiography of a Yogi, which was first published in 1946 and continues to be one of the best-selling spiritual philosophy titles of all time. In this critical biography, David Neumann tells the story of Yogananda’s fascinating life while interpreting his position in religious history, transnational modernity, and American culture. Beginning with Yogananda’s spiritual investigations in his native India, Neumann tells how this early “global guru” emigrated to the United States in 1920 and established his headquarters, the Self-Realization Fellowship, in Los Angeles, where it continues today. Preaching his message of Hindu yogic philosophy in a land that routinely sent its own evangelists to India, Yogananda was fueled by a religious nationalism that led him to conclude that Hinduism could uniquely fill a spiritual void in America and Europe. At the same time, he embraced a growing belief that Hinduism’s success outside South Asia hinged on a sincere understanding of Christian belief and practice. By “universalizing” Hinduism, Neumann argues, Yogananda helped create the novel vocation of Hindu yogi evangelist, generating fresh connections between religion and commercial culture in a deepening American religious pluralism.

Bohemians, Vagabonds, and Wanderers of the “Ragged Promised Land” in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (58) ◽  
pp. 50-59
Author(s):  
Daria Anna Urbańska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Real ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
The Road ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
On The Road ◽  
American Society ◽  
Main Protagonist

The article focuses on the journey into the “ragged promised land” (80) in On the Road. It can be seen as an escape of the main protagonist Sal Paradise from his roots and from the conformity of American society. Kerouac, having a Franco-Canadian heritage, presents a marginal possibility of heterogeneity in a homogenous postwar America. The author depicts additional mentors and heroes met along the way. They are, among others, tramps and hoboes, ragged wanderers and the Fellahin of Mexico, as well as Sal’s travel companion Dean Moriarty. Sal experiences something true and meaningful among those living on the margin of society. He travels considerable distances: from coast to coast across the United States, from boarder to boarder and to Mexico. The real journey, though, is inward, a passage through the wilderness of the self, the true “ragged promised land”.

scholarly journals Evolution of the Novel in the United States

2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Egnal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Key Words ◽  
English Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
American Society ◽  
Modern Era

This article examines the evolution of the novel in the United States using a remarkable new source, the Ngram database. This database, which spans several centuries, draws on the 15 million books that Google has scanned. It allows researchers to look at year-to-year fluctuations in the use of particular words. Using one of the available filters, the article is based on English-language books published in the United States between 1800 and 2008. But making sense of these data requires a framework. That framework is provided by the four periods that emerge from much recent writing on the novel. Four epochs—the sentimental era (1789–1860), the genteel era (1860–1915), the modern era (1915–60), and the postmodern era (1960–)—define the evolution of the novel and, more broadly, changes in American society and values. The article argues that a study of key words drawn from the Ngram database confirms the existence of these periods and deepens our understanding of them.

scholarly journals Multicultural Identity Crisis in Bharati Mukherjee’s Novel Jasmine

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-68
Author(s):  
Seema Parveen ◽  
Prof. Tanveer Khadija
Keyword(s):  
Women Characters ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Bharati Mukherjee ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Multicultural Identity ◽  
American Society

This paper intends to explore the transformations with disintegration literary pieces of Bharati  Mukherjee has gained a milestone as she brings out the segregation experienced by the immigrants of South Asian Countries. Through her novels, she voices her personal life experiences to show the reconstructing shape of American Society. She centrally locates her emphasis on the women characters their struggle for identity, their harsh experiences and their final emergence as the self- assertive, self opinioned individuals free from fear imposed on them. The list of Diasporic writer is too long and the root of Diaspora is so deep. Through the novel Jasmine, Bharati Mukherjee focuses the multicultural identity of a woman. This paper is an effort to portray the bitter experiences of homelessness, displacement, oppression and exploitation of protagonist Jasmine.

Equitable Pandemic Preparedness and Rapid Response: Lessons from COVID-19 for Pandemic Health Equity

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 921-935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip M. Alberti ◽  
Paula M. Lantz ◽  
Consuelo H. Wilkins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Equity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rapid Response ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Pandemic Preparedness ◽  
Fundamental Causes ◽  
American Society ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
And Control

Abstract The novel coronavirus pandemic has set in high relief the entrenched health, social, racial, political, and economic inequities within American society as the incidence of severe morbidity and mortality from the disease caused by the virus appears to be much greater in black and other racial/ethnic minority populations, within homeless and incarcerated populations, and in lower-income communities in general. The reality is that the United States is ill equipped to realize health equity in prevention and control efforts for any type of health outcome, including an infectious disease pandemic. In this article, the authors address an important question: When new waves of the current pandemic emerge, or another novel pandemic emerges, how can the United States be better prepared and also ensure a rapid response that reduces rather than exacerbates social and health inequities? The authors argue for a health equity framework to pandemic preparedness that is grounded in meaningful community engagement and that, while recognizing the fundamental causes of social and health inequity, has a clear focus on upstream and midstream preparedness and downstream rapid response efforts that put social and health equity at the forefront.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Valls
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Color Blind ◽  
American Society ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

The persistence of racial inequality in the United States raises deep and complex questions of racial justice. Some observers argue that public policy must be “color-blind,” while others argue that policies that take race into account should be defended on grounds of diversity or integration. This chapter begins to sketch an alternative to both of these, one that supports strong efforts to address racial inequality but that focuses on the conditions necessary for the liberty and equality of all. It argues that while race is a social construction, it remains deeply embedded in American society. A conception of racial justice is needed, one that is grounded on the premises provided by liberal political theory.

Breaking Free

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre David
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Male Homosexuality ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
The Family

In the mid- to late 1950s, Pamela emerged as a critically acclaimed novelist, particularly after the family returned to London. In perhaps her best-known novel, The Unspeakable Skipton, she explores the life of a paranoid writer who sponges on English visitors to Bruges. The novel was hailed for its wit and sensitive depiction of the life of a writer. She also published a fine study of a London vicar martyred in marriage to a vain and selfish wife: The Humbler Creation is remarkable for its incisive and empathetic depiction of male despair. The Last Resort sealed her distinction as a brilliant novelist of domestic life in its frank depiction of male homosexuality. While continuing to publish fiction, Pamela maintained her reputation as a deft reviewer. In 1954, she and Charles travelled to the United States—the first of many trips that were to follow.

Maximus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Byers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Action ◽  
American Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
The One

This concluding chapter charts the continuing significance of the early postwar moment in Olson’s later work, particularly The Maximus Poems. The philosophical and political concerns of the American avant-garde between 1946 and 1951 play out across The Maximus Poems just as they inform later American art practices. The search of the early postwar American independent left for a source of political action rooted in the embodied individual is seen, on the one hand, to have been personified in the figure of Maximus. At the same time, Maximus’s radical ‘practice of the self’ charts a sophisticated alternative to the Enlightenment humanist subject widely critiqued in the United States in the immediate postwar period.

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