13. Jasmine was always very cautious of what was going on in her life. She always felt like it was her fate to become a widow and leave Hasnapur. Even for me as a reader, I felt like her inevitable widowhood was hanging over my head no matter what happened. However, Jasmine still carried on in the tradition of being married off at a young age, and then Prakash her beloved husband was killed. After this it was almost her fate to go to America. It was what she was going to do with Prakash, and so it made sense that she would do it to fulfill his wishes. However once she got to America she was no longer held down by fate and customs. Jasmine could do as she wished. She could be who she wanted to be. She could do whatever she wanted to do. She even killed a man! She impulsively left New York when she felt it was no longer safe for her to be there. Then she left Idaho and Bud when she felt that there was somewhere else where she needed to be. After Jasmine left Hasnapur she was overcome with free will. At one point she thought it was her fate to die in America, her fate to grow old with Prakash or Bud, but she learned how to make her own fate instead.

12. The different relationships between place and identity are very clear in the book. The protagonist literally has different names in the different places she is in: Jasmine when she is in Hasnapur, Jase when she is in New York City and Jane when she is in Idaho. When she is Jasmine in Hasnapur she is what older cultures expect their women to be. Her sole purpose in life was to find a husband, and then once married bare a child for that husband. Even at first with Prakash, she stays home, and wants to have a baby. Then Prakash enlightens her, and turns her into a new woman. She learns English, and has actual dreams of moving to America with Prakash. When she is in New York City, she is a woman who will do what she must to get by. She works as an au pair for Taylor, and starts to become part of Taylor’s family. In New York she has adapted to the more modern style of living, where it’s not unusual for women to support themselves. In Idaho she becomes a nurturing wife and mother of Du. Here she is a mysterious, but still developed individual. She understands how to care for others, but at the same time she holds on to the things that have happened to her in the past.

11. Jasmine is self-reliant in the sense that she doesn’t really make that deep of connections with anyone. No matter how much Jasmine, or Jase, or Jane say that they are in love with who they’re with and where they are, they never have that hard of a time leaving it all behind. With the exception of Jasmine, whom I do believe loved Prakash dearly, her connections with people are shallow. She claims to be in love with Taylor before she finds out about Wylie’s man on the side. However when the opportunity presented itself for her and Taylor to be together, she ran away. Even though the end to the book was dramatic, she was still able to get up and leave Bud. She didn’t really even say anything to him, she just left. She is also self-reliant through the fact that she never revealed anything about what she had been through to anyone. Her husband had been murdered, she had been raped several times, she had even killed a man, but she still kept that to herself. She dealt with her problems herself on her own time instead of sharing them with others. Some people that I know have a tough time dealing with getting a bad grade on a test by themselves, so I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to handle everything that Jasmine had to on her own. Her strongest relationship was the one with herself. I wouldn’t say that she is very selfish though. She took care of Bud without a complaint, and took care of lots of other people as well. She paid her debts, and kept her promises. She was selfish in leaving Wylie and Taylor, and Bud, but when someone has been through as much as she had it is hard to call them selfish for doing such things, instead of seeing it as doing what they must to carry on.

10. The townspeople of Hillsboro might as well be clones, at least in the beginning of the story. They are religious and have faith in Christianity. They do not wish to think for themselves, rather carry on living in the shelter of an outdated custom. They uniformly and ecstatically welcome Brady to town. They respected Brady. He was like a hometown hero to them, even though some of them were seeing him for the first time that day. On the contrary, the townspeople held an extraordinary amount of contempt for evolution. While some people carried signs routing for Brady, others carried signs condemning evolution. The scientific theory was sacrilege in their eyes. So much so that they didn’t even want to hear Darwin’s words of blasphemy in their town. The small-minded people of the small town of Hillsboro were exactly the type of people that a man like Brady appealed to. Reverend Brown, the extremely religious man who wished death upon Cates praised Brady as if he was the Messiah. Even for Cates’ lover Rachel it was difficult to take a leap and start thinking for herself. By the end of the story the townspeople have started to favor Drummond. They laugh at Brady when Drummond makes jokes about him, and barely listen to the words that Brady has to say. At the end of Act 2 Scene 2, Drummond has made Brady look like a fool by fighting the truth of everything in the bible with science. Brady cannot back down from his fundamentalist ideals, so Drummond is able to turn the crowd’s favor. By the end of the scene the crowd is walking out of the courtroom while Brady tries to win back their favor by chanting biblical verses.

9. Drummond makes it clear through his arguments that thinking for oneself is a good thing. Not only that, but he also advocates for it as if he’s running a presidential campaign based on the premise that one should think for themselves. He comes right out and says it on page 71, “I am trying to establish, Your Honor, that Howard or Colonel Brady or Charles Darwin or anyone in this courtroom or you, sir has the right to think!” On the other hand Colonel Brady fights for tradition and faith in God, referring to those believing in evolution as “Evil-usionists.” He is not just a believer and a good Christian, but a true fundamentalist. When questioned by Drummond about the validity of the Bible, Brady coyly brushes him off. He says with such tranquility that God can make anything happen; God created the laws of the universe, so he can use them as he pleases. Brady and Drummond are two very different men working against each other, one fighting for The Holy Bible, the other for innovation and advancement. Though some people in the book fail to recognize it, Drummond is aware that his entire case is defending the right to think.

8. Even though there is religious and cultural freedom in the United States, it is still tough for whoever is the minority. You can think what you want, but there will always be people throwing ridicule your way. I find hard core religious people unsettling, but they probably find my views sacrilegious. Inherit the Wind shows how people weren’t quick to jump on the band wagon for evolution. People didn’t like the change, because they were comforted by the idea that God is almighty and created everything. In Jasmine some people didn’t like that Bud was shacking up with a Punjabi girl and an Asian son, because it wasn’t what they were used to. People like the comfort of what they are used to, and when something is different they criticize it. It’s like how some people still question Climate Change, when it is so clear that there is in fact something wrong with Earth. They blow it off as if it is a joke, when it is a very serious issue. People don’t want to accept that there is something wrong, and that the way they are living could be the reason for the problem. It is true that in America, there are those who will accept everyone as they come, but people forget that there are those who aren’t comfortable with the change.

6. In Jasmine the author criticizes the norm that women are to aspire to marriage, and then aspire to birthing a child, preferable a son. This happens when Prakash criticizes Jasmine for wanting to have a child so bad. Jasmine keeps pushing it on her husband, and finally Prakash shows her that just because that is the customary thing to do, does not mean that that is all she is good for. However she sympathizes with Jasmine not having a job at first. She makes Jasmine keep it a secret from Prakash, thinking that Prakash wouldn’t be pleased to find out that his wife was working. In Inherit the Wind, the authors criticize the idea that we should just accept the bible as the truth. The authors speak through Drummond when he says that everyone has the right to think for them self, and when he calls Brady out on the false ideas of the bible. However the authors sympathize with the people who aren’t able to accept evolution. Everyone does have a right to think for themselves, and that means that they can think incorrectly. This is shown at the end when Drummond is weighing the bible in one hand and Darwin’s book in the other.

5. I would give Inherit the Wind a very good review. It was easy to imagine for me. I could picture the setting perfectly, time and place, and I was able to picture the characters. I like reading books that are written in play-format, it adds to the drama of it. It’s a show, don’t tell type of thing. There isn’t a narrator to tell you that, “it was so silent you could hear feather drop” or “you could cut the tension with a knife.” Instead you pick up on everything through the intensity in the dialogue between the characters. One of my favorite things about the story is the ending. I love how Cates would have been able to get off with a 100 dollar fine. I find it ironic because the whole story is leading up to whether or not Drummond will be able to win the case. Because of this you are led to believe that the stakes are so high, when in the end it wasn’t really that bad of a punishment. When I was reading it I was thinking that he would be sentenced to death maybe, but instead he got a minor fine. I didn’t really like the romance between Cates and Rachel though. Even though it’s supposed to be a forbidden love type of thing, I just didn’t really find it necessary to the overall arc of the story.

4. Mukherjee did a good job of describing the place that the protagonist was in. She talked about the different types of people who were there, and what it looked like. However I had a tough time figuring out when the story was set. She never really said exactly when it was, you were supposed to be able to figure it out based on clues that she was dropping I assume. However I didn’t really pick up on any of the clues. When she was in Hasnapur I had a good picture in my mind of what it might look like: a small town/city that was poor, and had fields behind it. New York City was easy for me to picture, because I’ve actually been there. Idaho was easy for me to picture because she did a good job of describing the vastness of it, and the way that their house was. So even though I had a good idea of what the places the protagonist was in looked like, I couldn’t really connect any of the events to what time period it was set in. It was difficult to imagine what exactly things were like for Jasmine, when I didn’t know when the story was set.

3. I absolutely love it when writers jump around in time in their stories. Bharati Mukherjee did a really good job with this. She does it in a way that flows nicely. I also love when writers tell a part of the story in the beginning that you will see again in the middle. There’s something about it that is just so cool. When Mukherjee does it, it is the part where Taylor asks Jasmine or Jase why she would move to Idaho, which is how chapter two starts. Later in the novel, she tells about the moments leading up to it and then doesn’t actually say the part that already happened. Bharati basically says to the reader, “you know the rest,” which I think is very risky, which is very cool. Mukherjee tells the story in such a vivid way, you feel like you’re actually there witnessing the things happening to Jasmine. Also she creates a lot of pathos with Jasmine. She does it right off the bat by starting the book with the astrologer telling Jasmine that she would be a widow. There is suspense because you’re worried for Jasmine the whole book. So Mukherjee did a really good job of positioning the events in Jasmine’s story so that you would be compassionate toward her.

2. I would cast Matt Damon as Brady. Matt Damon has a big presence on screen, and I feel like that’s what Brady is. He is made to seem like a big deal, and I picture him having a strong voice, and looking like a strong individual, even though he isn’t as strong as he looks. Matthew McConaughey would be Drummond. He can go 0-100 very quickly, getting things heated up when he wants them to. Then he can bring the intensity back down, and cool things off. He can be funny and he can be serious, which is perfect for Drummond. Joseph Gordon Levitt would be Cates, because he looks like someone you would feel for. He has a nice smile which appeals to the audience. He is believable as someone who just wanted to do what he thought was right. Rachel would be played by Jennifer Laurence, because Rachel Mcadams can be strong and fierce one second, but she can also be the damsel in distress which is what you need most out of her to play Rachel. I think that Inherit the Wind could make a really good movie. It already has been turned into a movie, so why not do it again?

1. The obvious choice for who your favorite character was in Inherit the Wind is Drummond. Drummond is smart, funny, and progressive. He fights for what is right, and wants the people of Hillsboro to acknowledge science. Drummond is smart and confident, though the entire town favored Brady, he didn’t doubt that he would be successful. At the end of the book he even has the chance to let Cates get off with a minor punishment, but chooses instead to go to a higher court to argue again. That being said there is something that appeals to me about Brady. I think it is his overall confidence in something that he cannot prove. Brady’s character amuses me. Even though I would probably hate him if I actually met him, I don’t mind him so much when I get to observe him from a distance. Even though I hate him so much, I wound up feeling bad for him. So I guess I like characters that allow me to sympathize with them. Even though I couldn’t necessarily agree or connect with Brady, I was able to be compassionate toward him. In the end Brady is so defeated, what he thought would be a sure victory turned out to be one of the hardest battles of his life.