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Clothes and Jasmine

In the short story "Clothes," by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and the novel Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee, two separate Punjabi women must learn how to adapt to their adopted country, the United States. Although both are fairly traditional, young brides in the beginning, both face the stigma of widowhood shortly after their weddings, at a very young age. Both, then, must consider whether they will fall in line with the prescribed Indian way of going through life as a widow, follow the American course of striking out independently on their own, or if they will strive to seek some middle ground. This paper will discuss the problems that both young women face while striving to seek the best way for themselves to be whole while being both Indian and living in the United States. First, the paper will discuss the type of background, or girlhood, that each woman came from. Then, there will be a discussion of how each came to her own wedding and brief bridehood. Finally, there will be a discussion of how they came to widowhood, including the Indian and American views of widowhood, and how these two women came to terms with this state in their lives.

As girls, both Sumita and Jyoti are bright and hardworking, although they might not come from the wealthiest of families. Both want to do what is right for their families, but both also have a romantic dream that they want fulfilled. On the one hand, Sumita enjoys the romance of getting married and moving to a far country. She likes having her hair washed by her friends and preparing for the meeting with the grooms family. She likes thinking about the prospective groom and what he will be like. She wants to look beautiful for him, and has high hopes for this marriage. On the other hand, she also fears, if accepted as his bride, the unknown California that she will be traveling to after the wedding (Divakaruni 17-19). If married to this man, she will leave behind everything she has ever...

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Clothes and Jasmine. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:54, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1687539.html