Floating Between Fate and Free Will

            As an electron travels through a circuit (a system of wires and electrical components) its path is always that of the least resistance. Water always travels downhill, and an apple will never fall up. The electron, water and apple don’t have the ability to go against the physics that guides them; they have no free will. Similarly every human is subjected to events out of their control each day of their life. However I feel that even if the human lets outside events control their life for a minute, hour, day or years, they will always retain their free will. A man in prison may be forced to wake up and get out of bed every day, but he must use his free will to stand up on his own two feet and walk out of his cell. If he had lost his free will, he would sit unmoving until he passed away spending his last moments of life controlled by gravity and guards alone. Plainly I feel that if you have the will to live, you have free will. Jasmine, the main character in Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, is a human guided often at times by events out of her control and was raised in a culture that believed firmly in destiny. Jasmine has free will.

            Jasmine is an Indian woman who has come to America, for reasons currently untold in the novel (through page 50), and has washed away all her ties to her Indian past and fully embraced an American lifestyle. Initially it is unclear to a reader what Jasmine’s reasons for doing anything she reveals to us such as moving to Iowa. What she does reveal though is that she is still fleeing her past. It was the fleeing of her past that brought her to America, that changed her into an American, and that led her to her many destinations in America. So was this destiny and not free will? Jasmine says herself that “once we start letting go – let go just one thing, like not wearing our normal cloths, or a turban of not wearing a tika on the forehead – the rest goes on its own down a sinkhole.” (Mukherjee 29). This statement makes it sound like Jasmine is controlled by her environment.

            The truth however is that Jasmine controls herself in response to her environment. Shortly after the previous statement she reveals a truth about making a change like she and her adopted son had made coming to America. “There are no harmless, compassionate ways to remake oneself. We murder who we were so we can rebirth ourselves in the images of dreams.” (Mukherjee 29). I feel this statement shows two markers touching on Jasmines free will. The first is that she stated she has dreams, and that these dreams are the guiding forces in how she reshapes herself in America. The second is the use of “murder” rather than destroy, abandon or any such word to emphasize the difficulty of her choices to make her transformation.

            If you believe in destiny, there is no challenge in waiting for what is to come. Jasmine didn’t wait for anything, she actively pursued her life. She is also fully aware to the possibilities of sitting and doing nothing waiting for destiny. This is exposed in the readers first encounter with Taylor. The reader is unsure of any detail about Taylor other than we know he lives in New York. We also know that “Taylor thought dull was the absence of action, but dull is its own kind of action. Dullness is a kind of luxury.” (Mukherjee 6). Sitting around letting the world guide you is dull, and it is a luxury Jasmine did not have.

            Electrons, water and apples are not conscious beings and have no free will. I feel a conscious human will always retain their free will no matter how they are affected by their environment. But on the other hand, there would be no idea of free will if there was no idea of destiny. So no matter how many instances Jasmines life is controlled by outside forces, she always retains her free will between these instances.