Portrayal of The Female Protagonists in Bharati Mukherjee's 'Jasmine' and Angelika Fremd's 'The Glass Inferno'.
ABSTRACT
Untuk
meraih
gelar
sarjana,
saya
memilih
untuk
menganalisis
penggambaran karakter yang terdapat di dalam novel karya Bharati Mukherjee
berjudul Jasmine dan novel karya Angelika Fremd berjudul The Glass Inferno.
Saya tertarik dengan isu identitas yang tertuang dengan sarat dalam kedua novel
tersebut, maka dari itu saya juga memakai teori identitas dalam proses analisa
untuk membantu saya mendapatkan penggambaran karakter yang lebih jelas.
Jasmine menceritakan tentang seorang wanita India bernama Jasmine yang
mengalami krisis identitas dan mengalami beberapa pergantian nama yang
diberikan oleh beberapa pria yang ada dalam hidupnya. Dihantui sebuah ramalan
yang mengatakan dia akan hidup sendirian dan terasing, ia berusaha kabur dari
‘nasib’ yang menurut kepercayaan India telah ditentukan baginya. Dalam
usahanya untuk merubah nasib, ia pindah ke Amerika dan mengalami krisis
identitas. Hal ini mengakibatkan Jasmine terombang-ambing dalam beberapa
identitas sampai akhirnya dia bisa memutuskan sendiri identitas mana yang ia
inginkan dan yang paling cocok untuk dirinya.
The Glass Inferno menceritakan seorang wanita berkebangsaan Jerman
bernama Inge yang juga mengalami krisis identitas. Dihantui pengalaman masa
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buruk masa kecilnya dan kebenciannya terhadap rasnya sendiri, dia berusaha
meninggalkan masa lalunya dan berusaha mendapatkan identitas baru. Namun
usahanya untuk mendapatkan identitas yang baru tidak semudah membalikkan
telapak tangan. Dihantui masa kecilnya yang kurang kasih sayang, ia menjadi
tergantung akan pria yang bisa memberikannya kasih sayang. Dalam usaha
pencarian identitasnya Inge berpindah dari pria yang satu ke pria yang lain dan
mengalami perubahan identitas hingga pada akhirnya, dia memutuskan untuk
menentukan sendiri identitas yang ia inginkan tanpa perlu campur tangan pria.
Penggambaran akhir karakter Jasmine adalah seorang wanita yang pada
awalnya tidak mampu menentukan identitasnya sendiri namun akhirnya mampu
menyatakan identitasnya sebagai wanita multikultural yang telah beradaptasi akan
kebudayaan Amerika namun masih menjaga tradisi Indianya. Sedangkan
penggambaran akhir karakter Inge adalah seorang wanita yang pada awalnya tidak
mampu menentukan identitasnya sendiri namun akhirnya mampu menyatakan
identitasnya sebagai wanita mandiri yang dapat menentukan identitasnya sendiri
tanpa ketergantungan akan pria.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ……………………………………………………………………
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………………
ii
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………. iii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ……………………………………………..
Statement of the Problem ……………………………………………..
Purpose of the Study ………………………………………………….
Method of Research …………………………………………………..
Organization of the Thesis ……………………………………………
1
7
8
8
9
CHAPTER TWO: PORTRAYAL OF
THE FEMALE PROTAGONIST
IN JASMINE …………………………………………………………
9
CHAPTER THREE: PORTRAYAL OF
THE FEMALE PROTAGONIST
IN THE GLASS INFERNO ……………………………………........ 22
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ……………………………………….
36
BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………...
40
APPENDICES:
Synopsis of Jasmine …………………………………………………..
Synopsis of The Glass Inferno…………………..…………………….
Biography of Bharati Mukherjee .. ..………………………………….
Biography of Angelika Fremd .……………………………………….
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44
46
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APPENDICES
Synopsis of Jasmine
Jasmine, the main character and narrator in Bharati Mukherjee’s novel, is
born in India. When she is a small girl, an astrologer foretells that she will become
a widow and be exiled. Jasmine’s name is Jyoti. Jyoti is angry and does not want to
believe the astrologer but until she is grown up, she continually remembers what
has been foretold and is afraid that it will come true.
Jyoti is a smart girl. She goes to school 3 years longer than her sisters and
she learns English. Later on, Jyoti meets Prakash, a modern clever man who can
speak English. Jyoti falls in love with him and marries him when she is about 14.
Prakash thinks modernly and he wants Jyoti to be a modern woman too, so he
changes Jyoti’s name into Jasmine. Jasmine is happy with her marriage.
Together, Prakash and Jasmine have a plan to go to America.
Unfortunately, Prakash dies before they can fulfill their plan. He dies when he and
Jasmine are in a store that has a bomb planted by a Punjab named Sukhwinder.
Jasmine becomes a widow and is exiled in a widow’s dark hut, just as has been
foretold. But Jasmine does not want to end up like that, so she decides to go to
America with a mission to finish what her husband has dreamt of.
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Arriving in America, Jasmine experiences terrible things. She is tricked and
raped by a man whom she calls Half-Face. Fortunately, after being raped she meets
a nice lady named Lilian, who rescues her and introduces her to Taylor and Wylie.
Jasmine works and lives with them as a caregiver for their little daughter. Taylor
begins to love Jasmine and calls her Jase.One day, Taylor and Wylie’s marriage is
over. Jasmine is happier after Wylie has left because she loves Taylor. Jasmine,
Taylor and Duff, Taylor’s daughter, live together in an apartment and it makes
Jasmine feel very close to each other. Their happiness is perfect until Jasmine sees a
Punjab man who has planted a bomb that has killed Prakash. Jasmine is very
scared. She thinks that man has been following her and is going after her. So she
moves to another town.
In the other town, she meets Bud Ripplemeyer and becomes his lover. Bud
calls her Jane. Bud is crippled but he was not crippled when Jasmine met her. After
they have been together for about a year and a half, Bud is shot by a mad man. Since
that time, he has to sit in a wheel chair and Jasmine has to take care of him all the
time.
Jane and Bud also adopt a teenage immigrant from Vietnam named Du.
Jane loves Du as a relative. When Du wants to move to live with her real sister, Jane
is very sad and lonely. Jane feels lonely even though she still has Bud.
One day, Taylor comes to Jane’s house. He asks her to come with him and
she thinks that life as a caregiver is not bad, so she decides to leave Bud to be a
caregiver with Taylor and Duff. She also wants to see Du. She does not want to
think about what has been foretold. She chooses the way of life she wants. Then she
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feels relief and she realizes the transformation in her has stopped. She knows what
she wants.
Synopsis of The Glass Inferno
Inge, the main character and the narrator of Angelika Fremd’s novel, is born
in Germany. She moves to Australia in her early childhood and undergoes a bad
childhood. She lives in a broken home and her stepfather often abuses her sexually.
When she has grown up, she runs away from home with David. Soon, they
live together in Melbourne. Inge is very submissive. She always stays at home,
doing household chores and taking care of David. Inge lives that kind of life
without complaining, even though she feels her life is meaningless. She feels lost
and is looking for her map. Until she finds her map, she is willing to wait and
follow wherever life takes her.
Inge has several friends with different characteristics. She is use to
observing them and their behaviors. She thinks a conventional submissive girl is
very sweet, but she also admires the bravery of her feminist tomboy girlfriend. One
day, she meets Tristan and is attracted to him. Suddenly she thinks Tristan is the
one who holds her map.
When Inge gets pregnant, Inge and David decide to get married. Before the
wedding, Inge visits her hometown, which reminds her again of her bad childhood
when she has been raped by her stepfather. Being a German among Australians, she
has tried hard to associate with Australian. She hates her origin, she hates her past
and she wants to wash herself clean of all of them.
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After the birth of her baby, Inge and David move to Sydney. In her new
environment, she meets a new friend and has an affair with Paul. David is very mad
so Inge chooses to stay with Paul. But after about 3 months, Paul never comes
home at night. Inge feels lonely and has another affair with Paul’s friend, Michael.
She experiences a lot of difficult things until Inge decides to go back to David.
Inge and her family then move to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. David
and Inge work as teachers. They grow closer to each other when they are there.
Meanwhile, Tristan keeps sending her letters. Inge keeps thinking of Tristan from
time to time. She feels comfortable living in Port Moresby.
Later on, she meets Tugl, a Papuan boy. She immediately likes Tugl and
apparently Tugl likes her too. So they have an affair. Because the village is so
small, soon every Papuan knows about it. They throw stones at Inge’s house. She
can not stand it so she leaves her house, leaving David and her first daughter.
Later, Inge meets Tristan and they become lovers. But things do not work out
better even though Inge thinks she has found her soul mate, her answer to the quest.
Tristan is a very jealous and possessive man. He is paranoid. He always suspects
Inge of having an affair and always forces her to tell him who her secret lover is and
how they make love. He does not believe her when she tells him that there is no
other man, so, in order to please him, Inge makes up a story. Later, Inge ends up
being a prostitute just to make Tristan happy. But then, again Inge feels lost.
Inge can not stand it anymore so she leaves Tristan and suddenly she realizes
that she has never understood herself better than this time. Society and man do not
have the map she was looking for. Without them, she has come to know herself.
The identity she is looking for is in herself.
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Biography of Bharati Mukherjee
Bharati Mukherjee was born on July 27, 1940 in Calcutta, India. Her parents
named Sudhir Lal and Bina Mukherjee are wealthy. She was a clever child. At the
age of three, she learned how to read and write. In 1947, when she was eight years
old, she moved to Britain with her family. She lived in Europe for about three and a
half years. At the age of ten, Mukherjee knew that she wanted to become a writer,
and had written numerous short stories. She got her B.A from the University of
Calcutta in 1959 and her M.A. in English and Ancient Indian Culture from the
University of Baroda in 1961. She then came to the United States of America. She
was awarded a scholarship by the University of Iowa, obtained her M.F.A. in
Creative Writing in 1963 and her Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature in
1969. She met a Canadian student from Harvard, Clark Blaise, on September 19th,
1963 while studying at the University of Iowa. The two of them met and married
within two weeks. Mukherjee's career as professor and her marriage to Blaise Clark
have given her opportunities to teach all over the United States and Canada. At the
moment she is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Biography of Angelika Fremd
Angelika Fremd was born in Berlin. She migrated and is now based in
Brisbane. She gained a Secondary Teachers Certificate from Mt Gravatt College of
Advanced Education and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of
Arts degree She worked as a teacher in Papua New Guinea and in Queensland
secondary schools from 1966 to 1986 .
Angelika Fremd was a writer-in-residence in 1986 at the Brisbane Migrant
Resource Centre and in 1987 at the Ethnic Communities Council in Tasmania. She
worked as a Multicultural and Community Literature Officer from 1986 to 1989,
and is now a freelance writer and educator. In 1992, she received a Category B
Fellowship from the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Now, she lives in
Brisbane as a mother of five children and the grandmother of two.
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
The population of immigrants is increasing throughout the world. From the
17th century to the 19th century, millions of Europeans migrated to North and South
America, eastern and southern Africa, Australia, and Asia. Some of the countries,
such as The United States of America and Australia, even put regulations of
limiting the number of immigrants. ‘Immigration is the act of moving to or settling
in another country or region. An immigrant is someone who intends to reside
permanently, and not a casual visitor or traveler.’ (Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia) With the rising of immigrant population, the genre of immigrant
writing emerges.
Immigrant writing is literature about the experiences of immigrants, both in
the past and the present. It is the expression of immigrants’ feelings
…Their experience, expressed in various genres of writing,
attempts to put words to a realization that their uprootedness
translates into an inability to fit comfortably in either their new or
their old environment. Everything they do, everything they are, and
as a result everything they write, is shaped by the fact that they are
exiles. Writing, in fact, may take
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the form of the medicinal, providing them the best way to explore
the unfamiliar. This sense of homelessness and marginality is
described and named in various ways by writers…
(http://www.salzburgseminar.org/ASC/csacl/progs/ASC22/group2)
Immigrants usually face similar problems and have similar feelings. Since
they are away from their motherland, they will be confronted with a new
environment and new cultural background. In order to survive, they have to change
the lifestyle they usually had and adapt to the new environment. Unfortunately, the
process of adapting, leaving behind the old traditions and applying new traditions
needs time and a process.
Most of the times, the process involves inner conflicts, whether one will
receive the new traditions and give up his old ones easily and quickly or one will
take them slowly because he is not ready yet to embrace the new traditions. In the
process of transforming, one’s identity will be questioned and it becomes an issue,
‘The process of old ethnic identities transforming to something new necessarily
leads to a gradual acquisition of a new identity (new language, new social ties and
redefined gender roles)…’ (http://www.salzburgseminar.org/ASC/csacl/progs/
ASC22/group2) So, many immigrants, including immigrant writers, face an
identity crisis.
The authors that I have chosen, Bharati Mukherjee and Angelika Fremd, are
immigrant writers. Bharati Mukherjee is an American writer of Indian descent who
lives in The United States of America. She was born in India but then she migrated
at the age of eight. Angelika Fremd is an Australian writer of German descent. At
the age of twelve she migrated from Germany to Australia. She is now living in
Brisbane, Australia. Both of the writers are prominent writers who have been
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acknowledged by the literary society and they both deal with an identity crisis in
their novels.
The novels that I have chosen for my thesis are Jasmine by Bharati
Mukherjee and The Glass Inferno by Angelika Fremd. The protagonist in
Mukherjee’s novel, an Indian refugee, undergoes an identity crisis because her
migration from an Eastern country to a Western one causes her to suffer a cultural
clash. The protagonist in Fremd’s novel undergoes an identity crisis because she
had traumatic experiences in her childhood and being a German refugee in
Australia, it makes her get a stereotype and a bad prejudice against her race. Identity
crisis is “a period during which somebody feels great anxiety and uncertainty about
his or her identity and role in life and society” (Microsoft® Encarta® Reference
Library 2005. © 1993-2004) They are both having a journey to find their identity
and eventually they find their true identity. Using their concepts of their true
identity enables me to analyze the characteristics of both the protagonists as women
immigrants.
The approach that is going to be used is sociological approach, specifically
Kath Woodward’s theory of identity. Identity itself is a very vast field. It deals with
a lot of questions about oneself. According to Kath Woodward identity enables us
to answer the question ‘who am I?’ (Woodward, 6). The answer to that question is
believed to be one person’s identity and that is what differs him from other people.
Yet, the issue of identity is not that simple.
Even though the general idea of identity is one’s answer to the question
‘who am I?’ identity is not simply formed by that, ‘That is only part of the story’
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(Woodward, 6). There are many aspects involved in the process of forming an
identity. Some of the basic theories of identity are that identity involves:
•
•
•
Some active engagement by those who take up identities
The capacity to imagine ourselves and how others would see us
Class, gender, ethnicity and place which are important dimensions
of identity
•
Childhood experiences, consciously or unconsciously, which
determine identity as an adult.
Forming an identity suggests some active engagement on our part, which
means identity requires some awareness on our part and requires some element of
choice. We choose to identify ourselves with a particular identity or group.
However, although as individuals we have to take up identities actively, identities
are necessarily the product of the society in which we live. Therefore, identity
provides the link between individuals and the world in which they live. Sometimes
identity combines how I see myself and how others see me.
A social philosopher, George Herbert Mead, argued that it is the capacity to
imagine how others would see us and our capacity to carry images in our heads
which are important distinguishing features of a human being. So in our attempt to
combine how I see myself and how others see me, we imagine ourselves and how
others would see us. For example, if I want to be identified as a successful
businesswoman, I will imagine what kind of appearance, body gestures and kind of
speaking I will apply in order to give the right message to others that I am a
successful businesswoman. Then I will imagine how others would see me to
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confirm or make sure that when they see me, they identify me as a successful
businesswoman, just as I intended.
Other aspects that influence the forming of identity are class, gender,
ethnicity and place. “Class is a large grouping of people who share common
economic interest, experiences and lifestyles. Gender describes the systematic
structuring of certain behavior and practices which are associated with women or
with men in particular societies.” (Woodward, 21) “Ethnic community is a named
but loosely bound group of people whose shared identity is related to culture,
history and/or language, but whose relationship to territory and statehood is more
indeterminate than a nation.” (Woodward, 127) The four aspects are closely
connected and influence each other in the process of making one’s identity. For
example, gender might be a big problem in an ethnic community which still holds
patriarchal or matriarchal culture but it does not really matter in an ethnic
community which believes in gender equality. Class is also an important factor
because it is a means of classifying the economic and social divisions of a society.
In a materialistic community or place, class will be a crucial problem since it will
bring inequality between the wealthy and the poor, but will be less of a problem in a
fair community or place where justice is for everyone no matter how rich or poor he
is. So the four aspects are connected to each other and are important dimensions of
identity.
Identity relies upon a conscious, active engagement and element of choice
as we know, but it might also involve thoughts and feelings of which we might not
be conscious. Freud’s psychoanalysis has one major contribution which is his
understanding of the unconscious. “The unconscious mind is the repository of
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repressed feelings and desires- often from childhood. These feelings can emerge,
for example, in dreams. They can influence the choices we make in later life.”
(Woodward, 15) Freud suggested that our childhood experiences, even of which we
are not conscious, affect the decisions we make as adults. So identity is constructed
by the past as well as by the present.
Several theories of how identities are formed have been researched and
published by Kath Woodward, a senior lecturer in The Sociology Faculty of Open
University in The United Kingdom. This theory will be applied in analyzing the
concept of identity which later will be used as a means of portraying the
protagonist’s characteristics as a woman immigrant who deals with an identity
crisis.
In analyzing the characteristics or personality of a character in a novel,
several characterization techniques can be applied. Characterization is how an
author conveys to the reader the personalities of the people he writes about, what
sort of people they are and how he makes the reader get to know and understand
them. Murphy’s characterization technique in the book Understanding Unseen
shows that there are 9 ways in which an author attempts to make his character
understandable. Since both the authors, Mukherjee and Fremd, use the first person
point of view in their novels, the techniques that are mostly shown in Jasmine and
The Glass Inferno are thoughts, reactions and speech.
The use of thoughts in the characterization technique is when the reader is
allowed to know or analyze a person’s character by his deepest thoughts. “In a
novel, the author can give us direct knowledge of what a person is thinking about.
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The reader is in a privileged position; he has, as it were, a secret listening device
plugged in to the inmost thoughts of a person in a novel.” (Murphy, 171)
The use of reactions in the characterization technique is ‘…when the author
gives a clue to a person’s character by letting the reader know how that person
reacts to various situations and events.’ (Murphy, 168)
The use of speech in the characterization technique is ‘…when the author
gives insight into the character of one person in the books through what the person
says.’ (Murphy, 164)
I am challenged and interested in analyzing the portrayal of a woman who
deal with the issue of identity because the problem of identity is a problem that can
be faced by every individual, not only by immigrants.
Statement of the Problem
The problems that will be analyzed in this thesis are:
1. How is the protagonist portrayed?
2. What characterization techniques that are used?
3. How does an identity help to reveal the portrayal of the protagonist?
Purpose of the Study
The study is done in order:
1. To show how the protagonist is portrayed.
2. To show the characterization techniques that are used
3. To show how an identity helps to reveal the portrayal of the protagonist.
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Method of Research
The method of research used in this study is Sociological approach, using the
theory of identity by Kath Woodward specifically. I begin with reading the theory,
afterwards, select and apply the theories in my analysis.
The type of research used in this study is library research. I begin with
reading two primary texts, Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Angelika Fremd’s
Glass Inferno. Afterwards, I apply the Sociological Approach; specifically, The
Theory of Identity by Kath Woodward to help me understand the portrayal of the
characters better. Research for additional information through internet and other
references are also done to support my study. Then, I select, gather and use the
information to analyze the two primary texts. Finally, I draw some conclusions
from the study I have done.
Organization of the Thesis
I divide my thesis into four chapters, which are preceded by the Preface and
the Abstract. Chapter One is the Introduction, which contains the Background of
the Study, the Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of
Research and the Organization of the Thesis. In Chapter Two I present the analysis
of the female protagonist’s portrayal in Jasmine and in Chapter Three I present the
analysis of the female protagonist’s portrayal in The Glass Inferno. Chapter Four is
the Conclusion, which contains a comparison between the protagonist’s portrayals
in the two novels. This thesis ends with the Bibliography and the Appendix.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
Having analyzed Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Angelika Fremd’s The
Glass Inferno, I would like to compare both the novels. There are some similarities
and differences between the two novels.
Both Jasmine and Inge are portrayed as women immigrants who suffer from
identity crisis that is caused by their condition as newcomers in new surroundings.
As newcomers, both of them are confronted by new cultural backgrounds that lead
to cultural clashes between their old culture and the new culture. However, the
number of cultural clashes, which are one of the causes of the identity crisis, is not
the same because they have different backgrounds and they live in different
locations.
Jasmine is a woman of Indian descent who migrates from India to America.
As an immigrant from India, she goes through cultural changes, from Eastern
culture to Western culture, and has a bigger challenge in adapting to American
culture and mingling with Americans since her appearance is also different from
that of the majority of American citizens. Coming from a country
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which is rich in culture, Jasmine experiences a hard time in adapting to the
American culture. During the process of acculturation, she experiences an identity
crisis.
Inge is a woman of German descent who migrates from Germany to
Australia. She migrates when she is a child and has been living in Australia ever
since. Coming from also a Western country, she does not experience such a big
cultural clash as Jasmine does. Her similar appearance to that of the majority of
Australian citizens makes it easier for her to adapt to Australian culture and
mingling with Australian citizens. However, Inge also has the problem of being a
German immigrant among Australians. Being of German descent, she is prejudiced
as a member of a cruel race. Therefore, she is ashamed of her own race, which
makes her want to leave her own roots, and which eventually leads to an identity
crisis.
Both Jasmine and Inge are also portrayed as women who deal with an
identity crisis caused by their attempt to leave their traumatic experiences and gain
a new life. Since identity is constructed also by the unconscious mind, which is the
repository of repressed feelings often from childhood, traumatic experiences can
bring a crisis into the process of forming an identity as an adult. Both Jasmine and
Inge have traumatic childhood experiences that influence their ability to form their
identity. However, the experiences are not the same.
Jasmine’s childhood traumatic experience is a prophecy by an astrologer
who says that she will be a widow and an exile. The prophecy traumatizes her
because astrology is treated like a religion in India but she does not want to end up
being a widow and an exile. All of her life she is followed by the fear of the
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realization of the prophecy and unconsciously, it affects her in constructing her
identity as an adult.
Inge’s childhood traumatic experience is having a dysfunctional family and
a broken home where she is sexually abused by her stepfather and ignored by her
own mother. Being sexually abused by her stepfather and ignored by her mother
make her lose motherly and fatherly figures as a child. Inge feels unloved as a child
and therefore, unconsciously, she grows up to be a woman who is thirsty for love
and it affects her in her attempt to construct her identity as an adult.
Although Jasmine and Inge’s traumatic experiences are not the same, the
effects are more likely to be the same. The effects are that both of them experience
identity changes that are constructed and shaped by men. Jasmine is afraid of being
a widow; therefore she clings to a man who can be her spouse and does not mind
being changed because of her great fear. Inge’s unconscious thirst for love makes
her depend on men who can give her love in forming her identity. As long as she is
well-loved, she believes that whatever identity the man gives her it is her true
identity. Both of them are portrayed as being financially and mentally dependent on
men since they rely on men in their attempt to gain a new life and identity.
Their moment of revelation, when they finally gain their true identity, is
triggered by the same thing: unhappiness. Both of them are finally portrayed as
women who have overcome their identity crisis when they are trapped in one
identity that is given by others but which they are not content with. However, their
decision is not the same.
Jasmine gains her true identity by choosing one identity from several
identities she has been given by men that she thinks fit her. Even though in the end
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she takes her identity from one of the identity created by her lovers, it is considered
her true identity because she has added an element of choice into this identity. She
recognizes herself what she wants and who she is, and thinks that Jase, the identity
created by Taylor, is the most suitable identity for her. She has combined the parts
how I see myself and how others see me, which according to the theory is the
important requirement in forming an identity.
Inge gains her true identity by creating a new identity that is completely
constructed without any man’s interference. She decides to be an independent
woman both financially and mentally and be free from dependence on men in
defining her identity. Even though in forming her identity it can be limited by
others, Inge focuses more on visualizing her own self and constructing her identity
in the way she sees herself.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
References
Murphy, M.J.,ed. Understanding Unseen. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.
Woodward, Kath. Questioning Identity : Gender, Class, Nation (Understanding
Social Changes). London: The Open University and Routledge, 2000.
CD-ROM
Microsoft Encarta Library Premium. CD-ROM. 2005 ed. Microsoft Corporation.
2005
Internet Websites
Salzburg Seminar.Immigrant Writing: How Immigrant Writing and Ethnic
Experiences are Represented.October.1998
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Immigration. 4 Oct. 2005
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Identity crisis. 5 Oct. 2005
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity crisis (psychology)>
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Primary Texts
Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989.
Fremd, Angelika. The Glass Inferno. Queensland :University of Queensland Press,
1992.
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Untuk
meraih
gelar
sarjana,
saya
memilih
untuk
menganalisis
penggambaran karakter yang terdapat di dalam novel karya Bharati Mukherjee
berjudul Jasmine dan novel karya Angelika Fremd berjudul The Glass Inferno.
Saya tertarik dengan isu identitas yang tertuang dengan sarat dalam kedua novel
tersebut, maka dari itu saya juga memakai teori identitas dalam proses analisa
untuk membantu saya mendapatkan penggambaran karakter yang lebih jelas.
Jasmine menceritakan tentang seorang wanita India bernama Jasmine yang
mengalami krisis identitas dan mengalami beberapa pergantian nama yang
diberikan oleh beberapa pria yang ada dalam hidupnya. Dihantui sebuah ramalan
yang mengatakan dia akan hidup sendirian dan terasing, ia berusaha kabur dari
‘nasib’ yang menurut kepercayaan India telah ditentukan baginya. Dalam
usahanya untuk merubah nasib, ia pindah ke Amerika dan mengalami krisis
identitas. Hal ini mengakibatkan Jasmine terombang-ambing dalam beberapa
identitas sampai akhirnya dia bisa memutuskan sendiri identitas mana yang ia
inginkan dan yang paling cocok untuk dirinya.
The Glass Inferno menceritakan seorang wanita berkebangsaan Jerman
bernama Inge yang juga mengalami krisis identitas. Dihantui pengalaman masa
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buruk masa kecilnya dan kebenciannya terhadap rasnya sendiri, dia berusaha
meninggalkan masa lalunya dan berusaha mendapatkan identitas baru. Namun
usahanya untuk mendapatkan identitas yang baru tidak semudah membalikkan
telapak tangan. Dihantui masa kecilnya yang kurang kasih sayang, ia menjadi
tergantung akan pria yang bisa memberikannya kasih sayang. Dalam usaha
pencarian identitasnya Inge berpindah dari pria yang satu ke pria yang lain dan
mengalami perubahan identitas hingga pada akhirnya, dia memutuskan untuk
menentukan sendiri identitas yang ia inginkan tanpa perlu campur tangan pria.
Penggambaran akhir karakter Jasmine adalah seorang wanita yang pada
awalnya tidak mampu menentukan identitasnya sendiri namun akhirnya mampu
menyatakan identitasnya sebagai wanita multikultural yang telah beradaptasi akan
kebudayaan Amerika namun masih menjaga tradisi Indianya. Sedangkan
penggambaran akhir karakter Inge adalah seorang wanita yang pada awalnya tidak
mampu menentukan identitasnya sendiri namun akhirnya mampu menyatakan
identitasnya sebagai wanita mandiri yang dapat menentukan identitasnya sendiri
tanpa ketergantungan akan pria.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ……………………………………………………………………
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………………
ii
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………. iii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ……………………………………………..
Statement of the Problem ……………………………………………..
Purpose of the Study ………………………………………………….
Method of Research …………………………………………………..
Organization of the Thesis ……………………………………………
1
7
8
8
9
CHAPTER TWO: PORTRAYAL OF
THE FEMALE PROTAGONIST
IN JASMINE …………………………………………………………
9
CHAPTER THREE: PORTRAYAL OF
THE FEMALE PROTAGONIST
IN THE GLASS INFERNO ……………………………………........ 22
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ……………………………………….
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BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………...
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APPENDICES:
Synopsis of Jasmine …………………………………………………..
Synopsis of The Glass Inferno…………………..…………………….
Biography of Bharati Mukherjee .. ..………………………………….
Biography of Angelika Fremd .……………………………………….
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APPENDICES
Synopsis of Jasmine
Jasmine, the main character and narrator in Bharati Mukherjee’s novel, is
born in India. When she is a small girl, an astrologer foretells that she will become
a widow and be exiled. Jasmine’s name is Jyoti. Jyoti is angry and does not want to
believe the astrologer but until she is grown up, she continually remembers what
has been foretold and is afraid that it will come true.
Jyoti is a smart girl. She goes to school 3 years longer than her sisters and
she learns English. Later on, Jyoti meets Prakash, a modern clever man who can
speak English. Jyoti falls in love with him and marries him when she is about 14.
Prakash thinks modernly and he wants Jyoti to be a modern woman too, so he
changes Jyoti’s name into Jasmine. Jasmine is happy with her marriage.
Together, Prakash and Jasmine have a plan to go to America.
Unfortunately, Prakash dies before they can fulfill their plan. He dies when he and
Jasmine are in a store that has a bomb planted by a Punjab named Sukhwinder.
Jasmine becomes a widow and is exiled in a widow’s dark hut, just as has been
foretold. But Jasmine does not want to end up like that, so she decides to go to
America with a mission to finish what her husband has dreamt of.
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Arriving in America, Jasmine experiences terrible things. She is tricked and
raped by a man whom she calls Half-Face. Fortunately, after being raped she meets
a nice lady named Lilian, who rescues her and introduces her to Taylor and Wylie.
Jasmine works and lives with them as a caregiver for their little daughter. Taylor
begins to love Jasmine and calls her Jase.One day, Taylor and Wylie’s marriage is
over. Jasmine is happier after Wylie has left because she loves Taylor. Jasmine,
Taylor and Duff, Taylor’s daughter, live together in an apartment and it makes
Jasmine feel very close to each other. Their happiness is perfect until Jasmine sees a
Punjab man who has planted a bomb that has killed Prakash. Jasmine is very
scared. She thinks that man has been following her and is going after her. So she
moves to another town.
In the other town, she meets Bud Ripplemeyer and becomes his lover. Bud
calls her Jane. Bud is crippled but he was not crippled when Jasmine met her. After
they have been together for about a year and a half, Bud is shot by a mad man. Since
that time, he has to sit in a wheel chair and Jasmine has to take care of him all the
time.
Jane and Bud also adopt a teenage immigrant from Vietnam named Du.
Jane loves Du as a relative. When Du wants to move to live with her real sister, Jane
is very sad and lonely. Jane feels lonely even though she still has Bud.
One day, Taylor comes to Jane’s house. He asks her to come with him and
she thinks that life as a caregiver is not bad, so she decides to leave Bud to be a
caregiver with Taylor and Duff. She also wants to see Du. She does not want to
think about what has been foretold. She chooses the way of life she wants. Then she
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feels relief and she realizes the transformation in her has stopped. She knows what
she wants.
Synopsis of The Glass Inferno
Inge, the main character and the narrator of Angelika Fremd’s novel, is born
in Germany. She moves to Australia in her early childhood and undergoes a bad
childhood. She lives in a broken home and her stepfather often abuses her sexually.
When she has grown up, she runs away from home with David. Soon, they
live together in Melbourne. Inge is very submissive. She always stays at home,
doing household chores and taking care of David. Inge lives that kind of life
without complaining, even though she feels her life is meaningless. She feels lost
and is looking for her map. Until she finds her map, she is willing to wait and
follow wherever life takes her.
Inge has several friends with different characteristics. She is use to
observing them and their behaviors. She thinks a conventional submissive girl is
very sweet, but she also admires the bravery of her feminist tomboy girlfriend. One
day, she meets Tristan and is attracted to him. Suddenly she thinks Tristan is the
one who holds her map.
When Inge gets pregnant, Inge and David decide to get married. Before the
wedding, Inge visits her hometown, which reminds her again of her bad childhood
when she has been raped by her stepfather. Being a German among Australians, she
has tried hard to associate with Australian. She hates her origin, she hates her past
and she wants to wash herself clean of all of them.
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After the birth of her baby, Inge and David move to Sydney. In her new
environment, she meets a new friend and has an affair with Paul. David is very mad
so Inge chooses to stay with Paul. But after about 3 months, Paul never comes
home at night. Inge feels lonely and has another affair with Paul’s friend, Michael.
She experiences a lot of difficult things until Inge decides to go back to David.
Inge and her family then move to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. David
and Inge work as teachers. They grow closer to each other when they are there.
Meanwhile, Tristan keeps sending her letters. Inge keeps thinking of Tristan from
time to time. She feels comfortable living in Port Moresby.
Later on, she meets Tugl, a Papuan boy. She immediately likes Tugl and
apparently Tugl likes her too. So they have an affair. Because the village is so
small, soon every Papuan knows about it. They throw stones at Inge’s house. She
can not stand it so she leaves her house, leaving David and her first daughter.
Later, Inge meets Tristan and they become lovers. But things do not work out
better even though Inge thinks she has found her soul mate, her answer to the quest.
Tristan is a very jealous and possessive man. He is paranoid. He always suspects
Inge of having an affair and always forces her to tell him who her secret lover is and
how they make love. He does not believe her when she tells him that there is no
other man, so, in order to please him, Inge makes up a story. Later, Inge ends up
being a prostitute just to make Tristan happy. But then, again Inge feels lost.
Inge can not stand it anymore so she leaves Tristan and suddenly she realizes
that she has never understood herself better than this time. Society and man do not
have the map she was looking for. Without them, she has come to know herself.
The identity she is looking for is in herself.
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Biography of Bharati Mukherjee
Bharati Mukherjee was born on July 27, 1940 in Calcutta, India. Her parents
named Sudhir Lal and Bina Mukherjee are wealthy. She was a clever child. At the
age of three, she learned how to read and write. In 1947, when she was eight years
old, she moved to Britain with her family. She lived in Europe for about three and a
half years. At the age of ten, Mukherjee knew that she wanted to become a writer,
and had written numerous short stories. She got her B.A from the University of
Calcutta in 1959 and her M.A. in English and Ancient Indian Culture from the
University of Baroda in 1961. She then came to the United States of America. She
was awarded a scholarship by the University of Iowa, obtained her M.F.A. in
Creative Writing in 1963 and her Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature in
1969. She met a Canadian student from Harvard, Clark Blaise, on September 19th,
1963 while studying at the University of Iowa. The two of them met and married
within two weeks. Mukherjee's career as professor and her marriage to Blaise Clark
have given her opportunities to teach all over the United States and Canada. At the
moment she is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Biography of Angelika Fremd
Angelika Fremd was born in Berlin. She migrated and is now based in
Brisbane. She gained a Secondary Teachers Certificate from Mt Gravatt College of
Advanced Education and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of
Arts degree She worked as a teacher in Papua New Guinea and in Queensland
secondary schools from 1966 to 1986 .
Angelika Fremd was a writer-in-residence in 1986 at the Brisbane Migrant
Resource Centre and in 1987 at the Ethnic Communities Council in Tasmania. She
worked as a Multicultural and Community Literature Officer from 1986 to 1989,
and is now a freelance writer and educator. In 1992, she received a Category B
Fellowship from the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Now, she lives in
Brisbane as a mother of five children and the grandmother of two.
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
The population of immigrants is increasing throughout the world. From the
17th century to the 19th century, millions of Europeans migrated to North and South
America, eastern and southern Africa, Australia, and Asia. Some of the countries,
such as The United States of America and Australia, even put regulations of
limiting the number of immigrants. ‘Immigration is the act of moving to or settling
in another country or region. An immigrant is someone who intends to reside
permanently, and not a casual visitor or traveler.’ (Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia) With the rising of immigrant population, the genre of immigrant
writing emerges.
Immigrant writing is literature about the experiences of immigrants, both in
the past and the present. It is the expression of immigrants’ feelings
…Their experience, expressed in various genres of writing,
attempts to put words to a realization that their uprootedness
translates into an inability to fit comfortably in either their new or
their old environment. Everything they do, everything they are, and
as a result everything they write, is shaped by the fact that they are
exiles. Writing, in fact, may take
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the form of the medicinal, providing them the best way to explore
the unfamiliar. This sense of homelessness and marginality is
described and named in various ways by writers…
(http://www.salzburgseminar.org/ASC/csacl/progs/ASC22/group2)
Immigrants usually face similar problems and have similar feelings. Since
they are away from their motherland, they will be confronted with a new
environment and new cultural background. In order to survive, they have to change
the lifestyle they usually had and adapt to the new environment. Unfortunately, the
process of adapting, leaving behind the old traditions and applying new traditions
needs time and a process.
Most of the times, the process involves inner conflicts, whether one will
receive the new traditions and give up his old ones easily and quickly or one will
take them slowly because he is not ready yet to embrace the new traditions. In the
process of transforming, one’s identity will be questioned and it becomes an issue,
‘The process of old ethnic identities transforming to something new necessarily
leads to a gradual acquisition of a new identity (new language, new social ties and
redefined gender roles)…’ (http://www.salzburgseminar.org/ASC/csacl/progs/
ASC22/group2) So, many immigrants, including immigrant writers, face an
identity crisis.
The authors that I have chosen, Bharati Mukherjee and Angelika Fremd, are
immigrant writers. Bharati Mukherjee is an American writer of Indian descent who
lives in The United States of America. She was born in India but then she migrated
at the age of eight. Angelika Fremd is an Australian writer of German descent. At
the age of twelve she migrated from Germany to Australia. She is now living in
Brisbane, Australia. Both of the writers are prominent writers who have been
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acknowledged by the literary society and they both deal with an identity crisis in
their novels.
The novels that I have chosen for my thesis are Jasmine by Bharati
Mukherjee and The Glass Inferno by Angelika Fremd. The protagonist in
Mukherjee’s novel, an Indian refugee, undergoes an identity crisis because her
migration from an Eastern country to a Western one causes her to suffer a cultural
clash. The protagonist in Fremd’s novel undergoes an identity crisis because she
had traumatic experiences in her childhood and being a German refugee in
Australia, it makes her get a stereotype and a bad prejudice against her race. Identity
crisis is “a period during which somebody feels great anxiety and uncertainty about
his or her identity and role in life and society” (Microsoft® Encarta® Reference
Library 2005. © 1993-2004) They are both having a journey to find their identity
and eventually they find their true identity. Using their concepts of their true
identity enables me to analyze the characteristics of both the protagonists as women
immigrants.
The approach that is going to be used is sociological approach, specifically
Kath Woodward’s theory of identity. Identity itself is a very vast field. It deals with
a lot of questions about oneself. According to Kath Woodward identity enables us
to answer the question ‘who am I?’ (Woodward, 6). The answer to that question is
believed to be one person’s identity and that is what differs him from other people.
Yet, the issue of identity is not that simple.
Even though the general idea of identity is one’s answer to the question
‘who am I?’ identity is not simply formed by that, ‘That is only part of the story’
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(Woodward, 6). There are many aspects involved in the process of forming an
identity. Some of the basic theories of identity are that identity involves:
•
•
•
Some active engagement by those who take up identities
The capacity to imagine ourselves and how others would see us
Class, gender, ethnicity and place which are important dimensions
of identity
•
Childhood experiences, consciously or unconsciously, which
determine identity as an adult.
Forming an identity suggests some active engagement on our part, which
means identity requires some awareness on our part and requires some element of
choice. We choose to identify ourselves with a particular identity or group.
However, although as individuals we have to take up identities actively, identities
are necessarily the product of the society in which we live. Therefore, identity
provides the link between individuals and the world in which they live. Sometimes
identity combines how I see myself and how others see me.
A social philosopher, George Herbert Mead, argued that it is the capacity to
imagine how others would see us and our capacity to carry images in our heads
which are important distinguishing features of a human being. So in our attempt to
combine how I see myself and how others see me, we imagine ourselves and how
others would see us. For example, if I want to be identified as a successful
businesswoman, I will imagine what kind of appearance, body gestures and kind of
speaking I will apply in order to give the right message to others that I am a
successful businesswoman. Then I will imagine how others would see me to
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confirm or make sure that when they see me, they identify me as a successful
businesswoman, just as I intended.
Other aspects that influence the forming of identity are class, gender,
ethnicity and place. “Class is a large grouping of people who share common
economic interest, experiences and lifestyles. Gender describes the systematic
structuring of certain behavior and practices which are associated with women or
with men in particular societies.” (Woodward, 21) “Ethnic community is a named
but loosely bound group of people whose shared identity is related to culture,
history and/or language, but whose relationship to territory and statehood is more
indeterminate than a nation.” (Woodward, 127) The four aspects are closely
connected and influence each other in the process of making one’s identity. For
example, gender might be a big problem in an ethnic community which still holds
patriarchal or matriarchal culture but it does not really matter in an ethnic
community which believes in gender equality. Class is also an important factor
because it is a means of classifying the economic and social divisions of a society.
In a materialistic community or place, class will be a crucial problem since it will
bring inequality between the wealthy and the poor, but will be less of a problem in a
fair community or place where justice is for everyone no matter how rich or poor he
is. So the four aspects are connected to each other and are important dimensions of
identity.
Identity relies upon a conscious, active engagement and element of choice
as we know, but it might also involve thoughts and feelings of which we might not
be conscious. Freud’s psychoanalysis has one major contribution which is his
understanding of the unconscious. “The unconscious mind is the repository of
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repressed feelings and desires- often from childhood. These feelings can emerge,
for example, in dreams. They can influence the choices we make in later life.”
(Woodward, 15) Freud suggested that our childhood experiences, even of which we
are not conscious, affect the decisions we make as adults. So identity is constructed
by the past as well as by the present.
Several theories of how identities are formed have been researched and
published by Kath Woodward, a senior lecturer in The Sociology Faculty of Open
University in The United Kingdom. This theory will be applied in analyzing the
concept of identity which later will be used as a means of portraying the
protagonist’s characteristics as a woman immigrant who deals with an identity
crisis.
In analyzing the characteristics or personality of a character in a novel,
several characterization techniques can be applied. Characterization is how an
author conveys to the reader the personalities of the people he writes about, what
sort of people they are and how he makes the reader get to know and understand
them. Murphy’s characterization technique in the book Understanding Unseen
shows that there are 9 ways in which an author attempts to make his character
understandable. Since both the authors, Mukherjee and Fremd, use the first person
point of view in their novels, the techniques that are mostly shown in Jasmine and
The Glass Inferno are thoughts, reactions and speech.
The use of thoughts in the characterization technique is when the reader is
allowed to know or analyze a person’s character by his deepest thoughts. “In a
novel, the author can give us direct knowledge of what a person is thinking about.
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The reader is in a privileged position; he has, as it were, a secret listening device
plugged in to the inmost thoughts of a person in a novel.” (Murphy, 171)
The use of reactions in the characterization technique is ‘…when the author
gives a clue to a person’s character by letting the reader know how that person
reacts to various situations and events.’ (Murphy, 168)
The use of speech in the characterization technique is ‘…when the author
gives insight into the character of one person in the books through what the person
says.’ (Murphy, 164)
I am challenged and interested in analyzing the portrayal of a woman who
deal with the issue of identity because the problem of identity is a problem that can
be faced by every individual, not only by immigrants.
Statement of the Problem
The problems that will be analyzed in this thesis are:
1. How is the protagonist portrayed?
2. What characterization techniques that are used?
3. How does an identity help to reveal the portrayal of the protagonist?
Purpose of the Study
The study is done in order:
1. To show how the protagonist is portrayed.
2. To show the characterization techniques that are used
3. To show how an identity helps to reveal the portrayal of the protagonist.
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Method of Research
The method of research used in this study is Sociological approach, using the
theory of identity by Kath Woodward specifically. I begin with reading the theory,
afterwards, select and apply the theories in my analysis.
The type of research used in this study is library research. I begin with
reading two primary texts, Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Angelika Fremd’s
Glass Inferno. Afterwards, I apply the Sociological Approach; specifically, The
Theory of Identity by Kath Woodward to help me understand the portrayal of the
characters better. Research for additional information through internet and other
references are also done to support my study. Then, I select, gather and use the
information to analyze the two primary texts. Finally, I draw some conclusions
from the study I have done.
Organization of the Thesis
I divide my thesis into four chapters, which are preceded by the Preface and
the Abstract. Chapter One is the Introduction, which contains the Background of
the Study, the Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of
Research and the Organization of the Thesis. In Chapter Two I present the analysis
of the female protagonist’s portrayal in Jasmine and in Chapter Three I present the
analysis of the female protagonist’s portrayal in The Glass Inferno. Chapter Four is
the Conclusion, which contains a comparison between the protagonist’s portrayals
in the two novels. This thesis ends with the Bibliography and the Appendix.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
Having analyzed Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Angelika Fremd’s The
Glass Inferno, I would like to compare both the novels. There are some similarities
and differences between the two novels.
Both Jasmine and Inge are portrayed as women immigrants who suffer from
identity crisis that is caused by their condition as newcomers in new surroundings.
As newcomers, both of them are confronted by new cultural backgrounds that lead
to cultural clashes between their old culture and the new culture. However, the
number of cultural clashes, which are one of the causes of the identity crisis, is not
the same because they have different backgrounds and they live in different
locations.
Jasmine is a woman of Indian descent who migrates from India to America.
As an immigrant from India, she goes through cultural changes, from Eastern
culture to Western culture, and has a bigger challenge in adapting to American
culture and mingling with Americans since her appearance is also different from
that of the majority of American citizens. Coming from a country
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which is rich in culture, Jasmine experiences a hard time in adapting to the
American culture. During the process of acculturation, she experiences an identity
crisis.
Inge is a woman of German descent who migrates from Germany to
Australia. She migrates when she is a child and has been living in Australia ever
since. Coming from also a Western country, she does not experience such a big
cultural clash as Jasmine does. Her similar appearance to that of the majority of
Australian citizens makes it easier for her to adapt to Australian culture and
mingling with Australian citizens. However, Inge also has the problem of being a
German immigrant among Australians. Being of German descent, she is prejudiced
as a member of a cruel race. Therefore, she is ashamed of her own race, which
makes her want to leave her own roots, and which eventually leads to an identity
crisis.
Both Jasmine and Inge are also portrayed as women who deal with an
identity crisis caused by their attempt to leave their traumatic experiences and gain
a new life. Since identity is constructed also by the unconscious mind, which is the
repository of repressed feelings often from childhood, traumatic experiences can
bring a crisis into the process of forming an identity as an adult. Both Jasmine and
Inge have traumatic childhood experiences that influence their ability to form their
identity. However, the experiences are not the same.
Jasmine’s childhood traumatic experience is a prophecy by an astrologer
who says that she will be a widow and an exile. The prophecy traumatizes her
because astrology is treated like a religion in India but she does not want to end up
being a widow and an exile. All of her life she is followed by the fear of the
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realization of the prophecy and unconsciously, it affects her in constructing her
identity as an adult.
Inge’s childhood traumatic experience is having a dysfunctional family and
a broken home where she is sexually abused by her stepfather and ignored by her
own mother. Being sexually abused by her stepfather and ignored by her mother
make her lose motherly and fatherly figures as a child. Inge feels unloved as a child
and therefore, unconsciously, she grows up to be a woman who is thirsty for love
and it affects her in her attempt to construct her identity as an adult.
Although Jasmine and Inge’s traumatic experiences are not the same, the
effects are more likely to be the same. The effects are that both of them experience
identity changes that are constructed and shaped by men. Jasmine is afraid of being
a widow; therefore she clings to a man who can be her spouse and does not mind
being changed because of her great fear. Inge’s unconscious thirst for love makes
her depend on men who can give her love in forming her identity. As long as she is
well-loved, she believes that whatever identity the man gives her it is her true
identity. Both of them are portrayed as being financially and mentally dependent on
men since they rely on men in their attempt to gain a new life and identity.
Their moment of revelation, when they finally gain their true identity, is
triggered by the same thing: unhappiness. Both of them are finally portrayed as
women who have overcome their identity crisis when they are trapped in one
identity that is given by others but which they are not content with. However, their
decision is not the same.
Jasmine gains her true identity by choosing one identity from several
identities she has been given by men that she thinks fit her. Even though in the end
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she takes her identity from one of the identity created by her lovers, it is considered
her true identity because she has added an element of choice into this identity. She
recognizes herself what she wants and who she is, and thinks that Jase, the identity
created by Taylor, is the most suitable identity for her. She has combined the parts
how I see myself and how others see me, which according to the theory is the
important requirement in forming an identity.
Inge gains her true identity by creating a new identity that is completely
constructed without any man’s interference. She decides to be an independent
woman both financially and mentally and be free from dependence on men in
defining her identity. Even though in forming her identity it can be limited by
others, Inge focuses more on visualizing her own self and constructing her identity
in the way she sees herself.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
References
Murphy, M.J.,ed. Understanding Unseen. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.
Woodward, Kath. Questioning Identity : Gender, Class, Nation (Understanding
Social Changes). London: The Open University and Routledge, 2000.
CD-ROM
Microsoft Encarta Library Premium. CD-ROM. 2005 ed. Microsoft Corporation.
2005
Internet Websites
Salzburg Seminar.Immigrant Writing: How Immigrant Writing and Ethnic
Experiences are Represented.October.1998
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Immigration. 4 Oct. 2005
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Identity crisis. 5 Oct. 2005
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity crisis (psychology)>
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Primary Texts
Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989.
Fremd, Angelika. The Glass Inferno. Queensland :University of Queensland Press,
1992.
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