Women in the Land of “Melting Pot”: A Comparative Study between Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Sandra Cisneros’ Esperanza

Abstract

Women writers have made remarkable strides in the arena of literature and generously put across their aggravations, struggles, afflictions, and also their successful experiences in their writings. Of these, the immigrant women have reshaped and redefined the literature in a significant way because they suffered from the ‘twin burden’ of being immigrant and female. Among the immigrant writers Bharati Mukherjee an Indian born American and Sandra Cisneros a Mexican-American have achieved a high water mark in the literary canvass. They tell the tales of those immigrants whose stories go untold. Mukhejee’s Jasmine and Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street picture the struggle of women in an alien land, relate the cost they pay to create a perceptible existence in a strange land. The protagonists of these two novels, Jasmine and Esperanza constantly reinvents themselves, modifying their identities as their American experience goes on and as they acquire consciousness of what it means to start a new life in a new country. These two characters make me feel the strength of women, open a new horizon for me, which is why I have decided to work on this title. In my paper I am going to explore the idea of “melting pot”, identity crisis, sense of belonging, sexual abuse, Jasmine and Esparenza’s immigrant experience, their attitude towards their own community, and their determination to create a new identity and new sense of belonging to the “land of opportunity”.