"Fate is Fate"

Have you ever felt like everything that happens in your life was planned to happen that way, even if you didn’t plan it yourself?  What if there wasn’t anything you could do about who you are?  What if everything that happened seemed to make you different in some way?  I know that I have felt like there are things happening that I don’t want to happen in my life, but I have no control over them.  Truthfully it freaks me out when these things happen, and I feel that it freaks out Jasmine in the story Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee. 

It is apparent from the very beginning that Jasmine doesn’t really have control over what is going to happen in her life, and she seems frightened about it.  In the very beginning this becomes apparent when Jasmine is talking to the astrologer and she tells him, “No, you’re a crazy old man.  You don’t know what my future holds!”  He then replies by saying, “Suit yourself, what is to happen will happen.”  (3)  This is on the opening page of the book and basically sets the tone that Jasmine really won’t be able to control some of the things that are going to happen to her.  The astrologer also says, “Fate is Fate.  When Behula’s bridegroom was fated to die of snakebite on their wedding night, did building a steel fortress prevent his death?  A magic snake will penetrate solid walls when necessary.” (4)  The astrologer is basically saying that no matter what Jasmine does some of these things are just destined to happen.

When Jasmine says, “I fell.  My teeth cut into my tongue.  A twig sticking out of the bundle of firewood I’d scavenged punched a star-shaped wound into my forehead”, it isn’t quite apparent that she is uncomfortable with what had just happened, but then when she shouts, “It’s not a scar, it’s my third eye” (5), it becomes very apparent.  She doesn’t like this new “scar” that has happened on her forehead, but she is trying to say that it is something that was supposed to happen from the beginning.  She tells a story about how the one with the third eye is one of the holiest sages.  She acts like this is something good that was supposed to happen but then she also says, “I know what I don’t want to become.” (5) which makes me feel like it was something she really didn’t want to have happen to her, but she doesn’t have any control over it. 

I believe that Jasmine is actually running away to Iowa.  I never picked up any reason of why she is actually doing this.  To me she is afraid of what she is becoming and really doesn’t want others to see this, so she feels that getting away from where she is will help this.  She even says that she is running away when she states, “Taylor didn’t want me to run away to Iowa.” (6)  I think that if she was just moving to Iowa she would have stated that, rather than saying that she is going to “run away.”

I think that as we get further into this book we will see all of the ways that Jasmine is changing based on destiny.  What we don’t know is if these changes will be for the better or for the worse, for Jasmine.  But we do know that they are happening and she doesn’t have much, if any, control over the situation.