Names, Names....

    What’s in a name? This question (or cliché) has been tossed around nearly endlessly over the years, and for good cause. For many, the idea of a name is the same as an identity. But with the change of a name, does the change of an identity follow? I’m known as ‘tormesser’ on this site, but on other sites, where that isn’t my name, am I still the same person?

In the novel Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, the character Jyoti goes through this idea a few times. Her birth name is that of Jyoti, but over the course of the 241-page story, she goes by at least seven different names. However, does each of those names have their own identities? Does she actively choose to be them, or does she passively accept them, changing with the flow of things?

While she never “officially” changes her name, she claims to have had a different name for each lover she’s had. “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). It seems Jyoti considers each name to carry its own identity, but the question that arrives is, did she choose to take them?

With the exception of Kali, the husbands chose the name for her. Prakash, her first husband, chose Jasmine, saying she was no longer Jyoti, a fundamentalist Hindi girl. He gives her the new name as a way to transition her into her new life, and in my opinion, she takes it passively, rather than actively. At this point, she has yet to embrace the idea of an active personality. However, when she meets Taylor, she begins going by Jase. Jase is more of a pet name for her, and she considers it a starkly different woman from Jasmine. “For every Jasmine the reliable caregiver, there is a Jase the prowling adventurer. I thrilled to the tug of opposing forces.” (176)

Jyoti may not have chosen the name “Jase”, but she chooses the personality it represents, and goes with it. She takes the name as a way to escape her past. Jasmine died along with Prakash, so by embracing this new identity, she runs towards newness, leaving the old behind. She sheds her past by taking up a new name, much the same as people do with their internet names.

With a new name, a new identity comes the thrilling idea of newness. On this site I am a humble student, posting informative blog entries for the benefit of my class and others interested. But on another site, I may be a snarky, sarcastic jerk who acts in no way scholarly. Name and identity changes are something many of us use freely, for good cause. Sites such as Myspace are a perfect example. If we do not wish to be that person anymore, we can simply delete the profile, and make up a new one. Attach a new name, make up new info, and we have a new person there, arising from the ashes of the old.

Jyoti (or should I say Jase, by the end of the novel) completely abandons her past identities, taking up the new challenges and adventures with open arms. She owns her name once it is given to her, and takes it towards newness much the same as people with a new name on the Internet, or even in real life. A new name, to many, means a new start. New beginnings to escape the old, to try again.