在後殖民的時期及後現代的空間裡，一切都是片段且不連續的。自我認同隨著時空轉變而流動，不再單一而固定不變。
巴哈若蒂．穆可姬（Bharati Mukherjee）所著《茉莉》一書中，女主角茉莉自由地穿梭於不同的時間與空間之中，毫無困難地轉換不同的自我認同。她的慾望因自我認同的變動而產生主體流動性，她就像是拉岡(Jacques Lacan)的鏡像階段理論中，錯將自我的鏡像誤認成為真正自我的那位幼童，她更像是拉岡的慾望論中所重新解釋的那一位正玩著Fort/Da遊戲的佛洛依德的小孫兒。在拉岡的主體理論中，自我產生於鏡像階段，但是，所產生的認同乃是一個完整卻虛構的理想自我，只存在於想像界中。另外，在拉岡的慾望論中，欲望起源於分裂或匱乏，因此所欲望的總是所匱乏的，亦即他者，而且因為慾望乃是永遠無法到達指涉對象的能指(a signifier)，所以這一個永遠無法挽回的缺失使得慾望並不能被所獲得的暫時認同所滿足，而又產生新的慾望，如此週而復始，慾望永無止境。茉莉每一次見到自己的鏡中映像，就錯誤地認同其為自我，但是所因此產生的自我只是想像中虛構的認同，無法修復所得的暫時認同和失去主體性之間的縫隙，導致新欲望又產生，而從他者處得到新的暫時認同，此一過程持續反覆出現，使得茉莉穿梭在不同的認同之間，無法停止。
由於穆可姬極欲認同美國主流文化，故強調茉莉與她的印度過去之間的差異性，因此《茉莉》一書中將印度他者化的策略是必要的。根據巴巴(Homi K. Bhabha)的後殖民理論，他者性的形成是為了與殖民權威作一對照，但是他者性乃形成於一個殖民者自我與另一個被殖民他者這兩個端點的差距之間，所以差異的論述造成了論點會不斷改變的定型化成見，如此的矛盾導致他者的不斷改變，以至於此書中原本穆可姬設定給茉莉的權威認同－美國－竟然也取代印度而成為他者，如此一來，茉莉所得到的主體認同成了法南(Frantz Fanon)所提出的一個意象：「帶著白面具的黑皮膚」(“black skin, white masks”)。巴巴稱此為「雙重化意像」(“a doubling image”)，即「一種變形」(a mutation)或「一個雜種」(a hybrid)。正因為時間空間的疆界模糊，過去歷史不斷地回到現在並且重新塑形，也因此改變了現在，使得茉莉的自我認同在一個中介的空間中無法固定，不斷改變，而成了「自我的他者性」(“the otherness of the Self”)。
茉莉形成自我認同的中介經驗乃是在一個雙重的、混合的空間中，因為持續修正的時間，不斷地改寫當下的存在，猶如起源於匱乏的慾望，因為持續改變的現在而產生了新的慾望能指，導致新的認同不斷出現。因此茉莉無法擁有一個固定不變的主體性，而是具有多個片段、不連貫的認同，即「自我的他者性」。

In a post-modern space and post-colonial period, the phenomenon of fragmentation and discontinuity disorientates and de-centers the traditional human subject, which no longer has a core, or an identity, at its center. Order is displaced by disorder; instability turns into what is never changed. Identity becomes partial and multiple, constantly transforming its figure as time and space changes.
Such a fluidity characterizes Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine. This novel is written to urge her fellow American immigrants to celebrate their assimilation into American culture, rather than feel nostalgia for a dead past. However, I find it unlikely to belong in this novel because the female protagonist transforms her selves constantly, shuttling among these multiple identities at different times and in different spaces. In order to explain the cycle of her self-transformation, I apply Jacques Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage and desire and Homi Bhabha’s post-colonial viewpoint of cultural identity.
There are five chapters in this thesis. In Chapter One, I give a brief account of Mukherjee and her novel Jasmine, pointing out the issue of fluidity of self-identity. In Chapter Two, I focus on Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage and desire to prove that identity is constructed in imagination, and desire is for an absence and thus insatiable forever. It is desire that incessantly constructs Jasmine’s identity in the fluidity of self-identity. Like the child in the mirror stage, Jasmine misrecognizes her reflected image—either literal or metaphoric—as her identity; like the child playing the “Fort/Da,” she desires what she lacks, identifying with the Other, which is a floating signifier.
In Chapter Three, I employ Bhabha’s discussion of the form and the site of otherness to illustrate my point that the strategy of othering in Jasmine is necessary for Mukherjee. In Jasmine, there are polymorphous stereotypes of India and America. India is created as an Other whereas America, which first functions as authority, becomes an Other, too, as a result of the lack of distinctions between the Punjab and Iowa. In other words, othering India and America is necessary because both Jasmine and her author hope to create an Other, on the basis of which they can identify with what is not an Other. Paradoxically, however, identity based upon otherness is unable to remain stable because of its ambivalence of fixity.
In Chapter Four, I present Jasmine as a liminal space, where barriers of time and space are blurred. According to Bhabha’s terminology, this space is called “the beyond,” within which identification starts when the past is refreshed and the present is inscribed, repeating the present but having a whole new performance of the present (1). In Jasmine, different fragments of Jasmine’s liminal experiences are superimposed on one another, intersecting different times and different spaces and therefore, creating a sense of newness. Each of Jasmine’s new identities is constructed because of her desire for the Other, but each time Jasmine performs a totally fresh new identity, different from any other. Her past lives keep intervening in her present and thus go on transforming her present self as well as her past.
Chapter Five comes to the conclusion that in the novel’s liminal space, Jasmine’s hybridity, formed in the site of otherness that is unable to get rooted, keeps her fluid identities moving since Jasmine’s identification with the Other starts where desire—her desire and her author’s—works.

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