Embracing 'You'

"There was nothing wrong with my name... until I was about 12 years old and that no-talent ass-clown became famous and started winning Grammies" (David Herman portraying Michael Bolton in Office Space).

Growing up, no one has ever said my name correctly. I can't count the number of times as a child I corrected a teacher, a classmate, a stranger. I also can't count the number of times that I wished my name were different. Something easier to remember, easier to say, easier to blend in with. My name is Elena. Not pronounced with a Hispanic accent, but with a Lithuanian pronunciation. It's like Ellen (Ellen DeGeneres?) with an 'uh' at the end. Say it quickly and you have Elena. Not that hard... Really.

In Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee, the main character goes through a slew of names. Prakash, Jase, Jane, Jazzy, Jyoti, Kali, all names bestowed upon her by others or in times of crisis. Used as alternate lives, alternate personas, "I have had a husband for each of the women I have been. Prakash for Jasmine, Taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane. Half-Face for Kali" (197).

For each part of her life, Jasmine is a different person. She utilizes her name as a coping method. A way to move on and leave the past behind her. As Jasmine understands through Lillian Gordon, "Let the past make you wary, by all means. But do not let it deform you" (131). Jasmine uses this through her life to move on. She is not running from the old, but welcoming the new. Moving on to suit what she needs.

She ultimately proves this towards the end of the novel. She starts receiving post cards from Taylor, a man she lived with who took care of her and fell in love with her in New York. He tells her he is coming for her, and she starts to understand why she never married the man she is living with now, Bud. She has reached a point in her life where she has settled, but not as the girl, the persona, she want to live the rest of her life as. She is ready to embrace one personality rather than another. She chooses Jase. Not "Plain Jane," but the girl, woman, who wants "adventure, risk, transformation" (240). Jane walks out the door into the world of Jase with no guilt, just relief. She is "greedy with wants and reckless from hope" (241).

There is no running from anything. The past is the past. Jasmine, Jase, is a woman who is embracing the world as it comes to her. She is able to discover what she wants, who she is, even if it takes her years of 'becoming American'. That's more than most people can say of their entire lives. Who really knows who they are, and what's more... Who really embraces it???