Running Away or Towards?

When you make a change in your life you are in a way running away from something, but at the same time you are also running towards something. I’ll talk about an experience I have previously talked about and that was the decision to change schools. I was in a bad place in my life at the time so I decided to make a change and that was to transfer up to Chico state. I wanted just to run away from the situation I was previously in because nothing I was doing was working. At the same time I was running towards what I believe would be a situation where I would be happy. Fortunately it worked out and I am still at Chico State. We also se this in the book Jasmine.

In the book Jasmine, Jasmine is both running away from her past and towards something new. I don’t think that there is that big of a distinction between the two because if you are trying to get away from your old ways you are looking for something different and new and you are trying to move in that direction.

Back in India Jasmine was just a housewife and was expected to take care of the household just like most women were in her culture. She wasn’t expected to have to make a life for herself and support herself since she had a husband to do that for her. But when she came to America she was staying with who she called Professorji and his family. This was the man that convinced Jasmine’s husband Prakash to come to America in the first place. While staying with Professorji Jasmine had the same duties as she would have had back in India as she was expected to take care of the household and Professorji’s parents. Jasmine finally gets fed up with this and pleads with Professorji to help her get her green card so she can have her freedom and get a job since that is what she came to do. So Jasmine was running from that old lifestyle that she had in India and running towards the American lifestyle.

Another event that shows this is at the end of the book when Jasmine decides to leave her husband Bud, who she really isn’t happy being with and never really was, to move with Taylor and his daughter Duff to California. Back in India if a wife walked out on her husband for another man, especially one that already had a daughter, would be looked down upon and probably be outcast. Not too mention that Jasmine at the time was carrying Bud’s child. This event shows how Jasmine, after being in America for so long, has pretty much abandoned her beliefs and has adopted and is going in the direction of developing new beliefs and ideals based on her experiences in America. She wants a new belief system in her life and wants to get away from the old one.

Jasmine is not only running away from something, but is also running towards something. Ad that something she is running towards is freedom which she is experiencing in America. She running away from the old ideals of being controlled by her husband or elders and running towards making her own decisions and supporting herself.