Jasmine and Offred: Similarities

Finishing The Handmaid's Tale and beginning Jasmine is difficult in the sense that both novels are very different. Different word usage, different narrating styles, just a very new and different story. Jasmine contains more of an undertone of racial inequalities and is a story of a woman's voyage to America and her experiences there. The Handmaid's Tale takes place in a futuristic and controlling society with no way to get out, and it's heroine has a specific role in this society and cannot move up or down in society. However, so many differences makes it all the more fun and interesting to find the similarities.

Jyoti and Offred both find themselves in situations that they are not happy with. Both are women who are not free to do or say as they will and both are trapped and finding it difficult to get out.

To begin with, Jasmine and Offred both have or had husbands that they love very much. Unfortunately, they both also have multiple lovers and are owned sexually. Jasmine was raped by Half-Face, she is in love with Taylor, she takes care of Bud, and she has a sort of adopted son who "is a phantom lover, [who] watches [her]" and by so doing, "joins the ghosts of men"(Mukherjee, 30). Offred is forced to participate in "the Ceremony" with the Commander and she has a love affair with Nick, but still constantly thinks of her lost husband, Luke.

Both women have past selves that are reoccuring in their minds. Offred never stops thinking about her daughter and her husband, Luke. She is constantly recounting on the things she remembers from her past life, especially Luke. For example when talking about not feeling anything towards the men in the book, she immediately brings up Luke; "what I feel is partly relief, because none of these men is Luke"(Atwood, 43). Jasmine had a life in India before she came to America, and she often thinks about it and refers back to it. In fact it literally follows her when she sees Sukkhi, the crazy man who killed Jasmine's husband, Prakash, in the park in New York. This encounter forces her past to return to her thoughts. After seeing him she says, "suddenly I felt filthy, having been observed, tracked, by Sukhiwinder"(Mukherjee, 189).

I have actually found so many similarities that it is just not fair to try and fit them all into one blog post. So the rest of Jasmine and Offred's similarities will be discussed in my next blog post!