Bharati Mukherjee's life story has many parallels to the life her fictional character, Jasmine. Bharati, like Jasmine, grew up in rural India with a large family. Jasmine has eight siblings, while Bharati lived with her extended family (over thirty people). At a very young age, Bharati's family moved away to England, but returned to India a few years later. She then went to America pursuing an education, and instead she found a completely new life, a new identity, and a new sense of self. Bharati and her father had no idea what was in store for her in the states, exemplified by this quote from Bharati on a BBC page on her life story, "he had no idea, nor did I when I got on that plane to the states that my life would change and that within a week in Iowa in a woman's dorm I would find myself..." (BBC World Service). Bharati talks about finding herself, finding her identity, an issue Jasmine struggles with constantly throughout the first portion of the novel.
Jasmine, like Bharati, must adapt to many different environments. I will be interested to find out whether or not Jasmine ends up as a successful individual, mirroring the life of Bharati. I believe that Bharati reflected her own life problems and obstacles in the creation of Jasmine. Jasmine is the recreation of Bharati Mukherjee. Also the book opens with the line, "Lifetimes ago..." (1), signifying the recreation of one's self and the multiple lives Jasmine has lived, the multiple identities she has held, and the time that has passed during her transformation into the role of 'plain Jane'. Bharati may be reflecting on her own journey, reminiscing of a life long ago in India. Change is constant throughout Jasmine, and change is equally evident in Bharati's life story.
I definitely think there are aspects (especially figurative ones) of Mukherjee's life reflected in the story of Jasmine; however, as more of the story unfolds, the literal path our narrator takes deviates quite far from that of her author. I'm enjoying the blog!
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