Assignments or Accountability?

I don’t believe in god.  However I do believe in accountability and the idea that although I may not have control over the outcome of a choice, my decisions in life are those for me to make and no one else.  It is hard to believe I have an assignment from anyone but myself.  The whole idea of leaving my fate in the hands of another, especially one whose existence I question, is an absurd thought.  I believe in the idea that everyone is responsible for the outcomes in their life based on the decisions that are made.  In Bharati Mukherjee’s novel “Jasmine”, the main character Jasmine believes the complete opposite.  She has been brought up with a strong belief in god and is under the impression that everyone, in a sense, has an assignment from him and it is their duty to complete that assignment during their lifetime.

Jasmine is caught up in the notion that we are here to complete god’s assignments, and once they are complete we have no further purpose.  She explains how “The lord lends us a body, gives us an assignment, and sends us down.  When we get the job done, the lord calls us home again for the next assignment” (59).  She makes it sound as if we have no free will, and we are all gods puppets sent to do his bidding.   She is very quick to make an assumption which shows when she is having her conversation with Taylor about her fathers assignment before he died and her assignment as well.  From this selection Jasmine is unclear of what her assignment is but is okay with it because God’s “assignments are perhaps too vast for the human mind” (59).

This selection is important to the rest of the novel because it shows jasmine’s naivety, which is a possible reason for why she is always running away from things.  She says, “treat every second of your existence as a possible assignment from god” (61).  It is preposterous that she could think this with some of events that she has experienced such as the traumatic rape.  In her right mind how could she believe that a sin such as that would be imposed upon her and be part of her assignment?  These events show how close minded jasmine is to various ideas and circumstances.  However it also shows how much of a strong hold she has to the Punjab religion, which makes it difficult for her to create a new identity.  Punjabis are very religious and Jasmine certainly embodies their religion as expressed by this passage of the novel.

It is hard to think the way Jasmine does that everything we experience is part of our mission or assignment that God has in store for us.  But I think that as she matures she will find that it is the choices and decisions we make that have a direct effect on the actions and or consequences that result.  Regardless of a good or bad decision Jasmine is accountable for her actions because there is no physical form of God to take responsibility for her.  Ultimately, I believe this is the thought that scares her which is why she is constantly running away from things.