From Jyoti to Jasmine: Mukherjee's Quest for Hybrid Identity in Jasmine

Abstract: The present paper investigates the empowering force of hybridity in female diasporant in Bharati Mukherjee’s outstanding novel Jasmine. The novel depicts Jasmine’s journey of transformation from a passive, traditional girl at the mercy of fate in a village in India to an active, modern, and most importantly cross-cultural hybrid woman in America. All through the novel, her identity is transformed in line with shifts in her name from Jyoti to Jasmine to Jazzy to Jane. Accordingly, she stands in-between two cultures, shuttles between identities, welds opposing identities, enters the third space and emerges as a hybrid. The present study in the light of Homi Bhabha's insights seeks to demonstrate that immigrating, experiencing displacement and in-betweenness, and being positioned in the third space pave the way for Jasmine’s becoming a hybrid and being liberated. Besides, the study is to depict by creating a hybrid character, Bharati Mukherjee, the author, alludes to her own very hybridity

Od tradicije do suvremenosti: Ninina potraga za hibridnim identitetom u romanu Imigrantica Manju Kapur

The paper explores the liberating power of Bhabha’s concept of hybridity in Manju Kapur’s novel The Immigrant. By concentrating on Nina’s immigration to Canada, the novel addresses her early affliction due to the cultural clash between the East and West, tradition and modernity, her assimilation problems, as well as her gradual assimilation, her in-betweenness, transformation in her roles and identity, and survival in the host world. She opens a space in-between the home and host culture, mediates between them, and becomes the citizen of two worlds; she thus enters the third space, i.e. she stands in-between two cultures prioritizing neither the home nor the host culture but the middle ground and emerges as a hybrid who occupies the in-between space and develops a double vision. Using Homi Bhabha’s insights, this study seeks to demonstrate that being positioned in the third space, i.e. moving beyond the polarities and challenging the fixedness of identity and experiencing in-betweenness – being neither one nor the other, might pave the way for her liberation. The paper is to show that Nina is neither one nor the other, i.e. neither a traditional nor a modern woman but both, simultaneously transcending and reconciling the tradition and modernity.Rad proučava oslobađajuću moć Bhabhinog koncepta hibridnosti u romanu Imigrantica Manju Kapur. Prateći imigriranje protagonistice Nine u Kanadu, roman prikazuje njezine početne teškoće zbog kulturalnih razlika između Istoka i Zapada, tradicije i suvremenosti, njezine probleme s asimilacijom kao i njezin život između dvije sredine, promjenu njezine društvene uloge i identiteta te preživljavanje u novom svijetu. Nina ulazi u prostor između vlastite i nove kulture, posreduje između njih i živi u oba svijeta; na taj način, ona postaje dijelom trećeg prostora, tj. nalazi se u sredini ne dajući prednost ni jednoj ni drugoj kulturi, hibridom koji nastanjuje prostor između te razvija dvostruku svijest. Cilj je ovog rada primjenom Homi Bhabhinih teorijskih koncepata pokazati da biti dijelom trećeg prostora, tj. nadići suprotnosti, propitati ukalupljenost identiteta i iskusiti život u sredini – ne pripadati ni jednoj ni drugoj kulturi – može funkcionirati kao oblik Ninina oslobođenja. Nina nije ni tradicionalna ni suvremena žena nego oboje jer istovremeno i nadilazi i pomiruje tradiciju i suvremenost